Most enterprises today use Ethernet based Lan solutions. Invariably all of them have the newest fast Ethernet solutions in their Lans. While this is a norm today, it was not that uncomplicated all way. The Lan technologies have come a long way from the earliest uncomplicated implementations to the contemporary day high speed solutions.
The first Lan implementations were based on the same Ethernet belief but used a coaxial cable instead. The main backbone was a high grade coaxial cable which was thick adequate to enlarge adequate to connect a handful of computers and allow them to communicate. Since the focus was more on connectivity than the speeds, the traditional Lan speeds were nearby 2 Mbps to 5 Mbps.
High Bandwidth
This transformed fully when coaxial cables were substituted by unshielded twisted pairs or the Utp cables. These were more flexible along the corners which was a big relief from the coaxial cables which did not bend well at the sharp corners. This verily changed the manner in which Lan networks were built and connected.
To complement the Utp cable the Ethernet Lan was now implemented with new devices called hubs. The hubs are similar to the coaxial cables where there is a bus and all ports on the devices are basically drops from this bus. The advantage of hub though was that the computers could be linked at a longer length from the bus. There was no need to run the bus or coaxial cable throughout the rooms. It could be in a central location and all computers linked to it.
Both these evolutions came about straight through a new acceptable termed as the 10 Base T. This was a new flavour of the already beloved Ethernet. This one extended the Lan to longer length and also increased the speeds to 10 Mbps. eventually with the growing popularity of hubs, new devices called switches came into the market. These allowed the typically half duplex Lan networks to become full duplex, doubling the capacity.
With all the Lan evolutions there was new breed of bandwidth applications and more computers started getting added into the network. Now there was need for a boost in bandwidth. This is where Fast Ethernet got standardized.
Today many enterprises have exclusively Fast Ethernet networks. The switches too evolved to maintain fast Ethernet ports bringing in the benefits of high speed with full duplex operations. This has truly changed the enterprise Lan landscape.
Fast Ethernet - The Next Step In High Speed Lan Services
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