What is Gigabit Ethernet?

Gigabit Ethernet is a 1,000 Mbps extension of the Ethernet standard. It is also referred to as 1000BaseX in reference to the specification for the required copper or fiber optic cabling. The motivation is by its inherent compatibility with other Ethernet specifications (10 Mbps Ethernet and 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet).

It is ATM’s main competitor to replace FDDI as the backbone of choice. Its greatest advantage is familiarity, given that Ethernet is the pervasive technology. It was originally designed as a Local Area Network (LAN) technology, but it can scale to Wide Area Network (WAN) gracefully.

Ethernet uses variable frame sizing – ranging from 64 bytes and 1518 byes per frame, and it does not have the inherent Quality of Service feathers like the ATM protocol.

However, most network managers prefer Gigabit Ethernet since it is easy to configure and deploy. Also it doesn’t have the kind of added layer of complexity that LAN emulation adaption requires.

What is 10 Gigabit Ethernet

It is even faster, actually, 10 times faster than Gigabit. It operates at 10,000 Mbps.

However, there is a significant difference between them: 10 Gigabit only runs over fiber optic cables; It doesn’t run over twisted-pair copper cables as we are all familiar with. Why is that? Because 10,000 Mbps is so fast that twisted-pair copper cables just cannot support it anymore.

10 Gigabit Ethernet would be deployed in Wide Area Network (WAN), Metro Area Network (MAN) and data center backbones as used by Google and other big Internet companies. Because it is still brand new, the hardware can cost a fortune. Small to medium business just cannot afford them yet.

Colin Yao is an expert on fiber optic communication technology and products. Learn more about 10 Gigabit cable and 10 Gigabit fiber on Fiber Optics For Sale Co. web site.

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