Difference between Ethernet vs Fast Ethernet vs Gigabit Ethernet
This tutorial section on Ethernet basics covers following sub topics:
Ethernet over copper
Ethernet Business
Gigabit Ethernet
40Gbps Ethernet PHY
100Gbps Ethernet PHY
10Gbps Ethernet PHY
Ethernet types
This page on Ethernet vs Fast Ethernet vs Gigabit Ethernet covers basic difference between Ethernet, Fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet.
Ethernet-802.3
Normal ethernet works at 10Mbps speed. The Ethernet MAC technology is called CSMA/CD (carrier-sense multiple access with collision detection).
Following table mentions different 10 Mbps Ethernet such as 10BASE5, 10BASE2, 10BASE-F and 10BASE-T.
| Specification | 10BASE5 | 10BASE2 | 10BASE-F | 10BASE-T |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maximum segment length | 500 m | 185 m | varies from 400 m to 2000 m | 100m |
| topology | Bus | Bus | Star | Star |
| medium | 50-"omega" thick coax. | 50-"omega" thin coax. | multimode fiber | 100-"omega" UTP |
| connector | NICDB15 | BNC | ST | RJ-45 |
| Medium attachment | MAU bolted to coax | ethernal or on NIC | External or on NIC | External or on NIC |
| stations/cable segment | 100 | 30 | N/A | 2(NIC, repeater) |
| Maximum | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 segments |
There are two types of ethernet half duplex and full duplex.
Following are the Ethernet MAC parameters:
Slot time: 512 bit times
Min. Interframe Gap: 96 bit times
Attempt Limit: 16 (tries)
Backoff limit: 10 (exponential number)
JamSize: 32 bits
Max. Frame Size: 1518 bytes
Min. Frame Size: 64 bytes (512 bits)
Address Size: 48 bits
Fast Ethernet-802.3u
The ethernet working at the speed of 100Mbps is referred as fast ethernet.
IEEE standard 802.3u fast ethernet/100BASE-T specified in May1995.
The features of this type of fast ethernet are as follows:
• Includes multiple PHY layers.
• It uses original ethernet MAC but operates at 10 times higher speed.
• It needs star wired configuration with central hub.
The MAC parameters are same as described for ethernet above.
There are three physical layers for fast ethernet.
• 100BASE-TX: Needs 2 pairs of cat.5 UTP/Type1 STP cables
• 100BASE-FX: Needs 2 strands of multimode fiber
• 100BASE-T4: Needs 4 pairs of cat.3 or any better cables
Following table-2 summarizes different versions of 100BASE-T physical layers.
| Specification | 100BASE-Tx | 100BASE-Fx | 100BASE-T4 |
|---|---|---|---|
| IEEE standard | 802.3u-1995 | 802.3u-1995 | 802.3u-1995 |
| Encoding | 4B/5B | 4B/5B | 8B/6T |
| cabling | UTP cat.5 or STP | Multimode or single mode fiber | UTP cat.3/4/5 |
| signal frequency | 125 MHz | 125 MHz | 25 MHz |
| No. of pairs needed | 2 | 2 | 4 |
| No. of transmit pairs | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| distance | 100m | 150/412/2000 m | 100m |
| Full duplex capabilities | Yes | Yes | No |
Gigabit Ethernet-802.3z
The ethernet working at the speed of 1000Mbps (i.e. 1Gbps) and above is referred as Gigabit ethernet.
Gigabit Ethernet uses 802.3 frame format same as 10Mbps ethernet and 100Mbps fast Ethernet It also operates in half duplex and full duplex modes. There are various Gigabit ethernet versions which operates at 1 Gigabit, 10 Gigabit, 40 Gigabit and 100 Gigabit per second speeds.
There are various versions for 10 Gbps ethernet such as 10GBASE-T, 10GBASE-R, 10GBASE-X and 10GBASE-W. Read more.
MAC parameters for gigabit ethernet are same as mentioned above in ethernet. Except slot time which is 512 byte times.
10, 40, 100 Gigabit Ethernet Physical Layers
Refer following links to navigate articles on 10, 40 and 100 Gigabit Ethernet Physical Layers.
10 Gigabit Ethernet Physical Layer
40 Gigabit Ethernet Physical Layer
100 Gigabit Ethernet Physical Layer
What is Difference between
PDH vs SDH
SONET versus SDH
CAS vs CCS
FDMA Vs. TDMA Vs. CDMA
difference between FDM and OFDM
Difference between SC-FDMA and OFDM
Difference between TDD and FDD
Difference between 802.11 standards viz.11-a,11-b,11-g and 11-n
FDM vs TDM
ETHERNET LINKS
Ethernet tutorial Thicknet vs Thinnet Broadband vs Baseband LAN Ethernet over copper Ethernet Business LAN vs WAN vs MAN What is MAC Address Gigabit Ethernet 10 Gigabit Ethernet PHY 40 Gigabit Ethernet PHY 100 Gigabit Ethernet PHY