People has known the Ethernet technology since coaxial cable connection system was created to comprise of various computers and technological devices by PARC or Palo Alto Research Center Inc. (then known as XEROX PARC). Therefore, it is the oldest yet mostly used for networking until the present day.
Three years later, a partial draft version was finished and prepared for testing. It was announced successful not only because a connection between two computers were made, but also because data transfer fruitfully took place with the speed of 3 megabytes per second.
The term Ethernet was formed by putting words Ether and Net together. Ether was picked because of the use of Fiber Optics, where light is the medium of data transportation. Net is an abbreviation for network, the community of link computers.
With its promising action of making computer connectivities possible, Ethernet later on gave life to what we now know as Local Area Networks (LANs).
Ethernet works by linking computers and other devices through cables. One end of these cables is connected to the computer, and the other is to a connector. These connectors could be Repeaters, Hubs or Switches. Connectors, such as the three, are grouped according to how they do their role in the system. Ethernet applies the cause-and-effect approach.
Firstly, a computer will summon a signal where it embeds a message. With the help of cables, the signal travels from its origin to the connector and then from the connector to the accepting computer. When the assigned computer catches the signal, it will transmit its own back to the sender and react according to the prompted information.
In a standard network, all connected computers have exactly the same boundaries.
But in more complex and larger networks, there are usually one or two computers that are in control of the interactions of the entire network.
In the present, the Ethernet technology is available in many versions. The earliest ones are the 10BASE5 (the very first standard), 10BROAD36 (the first standard that allowed long-distance connections), 10BASE2 (also known as the Cheapernet) and 1BASE5 (said to be a failure but started the following developments in Ethernet technology).
The more modernized generation of the technology came with different speed performances. The 10 megabit Ethernet was the first to step out of the previous 1Mbit/second rating. And then the Fast Ethernet, which upholds the rate of 100Mbit per second, dethroned the previous by executing ten times higher.
And then the Gigabit Ethernet was born, priding itself with an even more edgy speed of 1 gigabyte per second data transmission. The Gigabit Ethernet soon opened doors for the 10 Gigabit Ethernet, the variant that surpassed its already-powerful precedent. And today, the public is only waiting for newer versions 40 and 100 Gigabit to be released.
It is hard to imagine where we would be now without the presence of networking technologies such as the Ethernet. Even the simplest of daily actions would be very bothersome when networking automation is erased. And so, we would always have to be thankful that Ethernet was formalized and born into our world.