IEEE Ethernet Standards (802.3) Explained
What is the IEEE?
The IEEE stands for Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). They are technical professionals that creates standards in the field of electrical and electronic engineering, telecommunications, computer engineering, computer science, and information technology. They are the leaders in technical advancement.
IEEE created a standard for networking, especially in ethernet domain. The IEEE created the 802.3 standard.
IEEE 802.3 defines Ethernet-based networks across a set of specifications and protocols. Ethernet technologies are most commonly used in LANs, but they can also be used in MANs and WANs. IEEE 802.3 specifies the physical layer as well as the medium access control (MAC) sub-layer of the data link layer for wired Ethernet networks.
A number of IEEE 802.3 standards characterizes Ethernet. These standards specify Ethernet’s physical and data-link layer requirements.
Common IEEE 802.3 Standards
There are many implementations of the IEEE 802.3 protocol. The following are the most relevant 802.3 standards:
IEEE 802.3: This was the initial 10BASE-5 standard. It made use of a thick single coaxial cable through which a link could be tapped by drilling into the cable to the heart. In this case, 10 represents the highest throughput, i.e. 10 Mbps, BASE represents the use of baseband transmission, and 5 represents the maximum segment length of 500m.
IEEE 802.3a: This provided the standard for thin coax (10BASE-2), which is a thinner variety in which coaxial cable segments are linked by BNC connectors. The number 2 refers to the overall segment length of approximately 200m (185m to be precise).
IEEE 802.3i: This specification established the twisted pair (10BASE-T) standard, which employs unshielded twisted pair (UTP) copper wires as the physical layer medium. IEEE 802.3u included additional variants for 100BASE-TX, 100BASE-T4, and 100BASE-FX.
IEEE 802.3i: This standard defined the Ethernet over Fiber (10BASE-F) protocol, which employs fiber optic cables as a medium of transmission.