E-Business
Issue No. 12 - August/September 2003
Look Ma, No Wires
by David Twiss
Most businesses today use several computers, often with PCs and laptops on desks connected to servers and the internet. Servers are used to store the company’s data including files and emails, and to run business applications for accounting and other business functions.
The computers in a company are connected together using a network; typically a local area network or LAN. By far the most common LAN technology in use today is Ethernet. A technology now some thirty years old, Ethernet was born in the Xerox Parc labs.
Early instances of Ethernet had maximum speeds of only a few million bits per second, but the first widely deployed Ethernets ran at 10 mega—bits per second (10Mbps).
Initially Ethernets were installed using coaxial cables, about as thick as a thumb, into which ‘cable taps’ were fixed.
In recent times Ethernet has been adapted to several topologies and technologies, the most widely deployed being unshielded twisted pair or UTP. That ‘overgrown phone socket’ on the office wall is probably UTP cabling that forms part of the company’s Ethernet.
Initially Ethernet used a shared access technique to allow all stations on the network to share access to the network cable. It seemed back then that 10Mbps of network bandwidth was plenty for all possible uses. Since then we have adapted computers to a range of network intensive tasks not previously feasible. The delivery of video signals and video editing for example can consume prodigious amounts of network bandwidth.
Luckily the endless march of technological progress has provided speed improvements for Ethernet. First came network switches that allow several ‘conversations’ to take place on the network at the same time. Then came developments in cables and the electronics that enabled 100Mbps, and most recently 1Gbps (1,000,000,000 bits per second) Ethernet has begun to be deployed, while research labs are trialling 10Gbps Ethernet.
The cable...
