Network -Ethernet

What is Ethernet?

• Ethernet is a type of communication protocol that is created at Xerox PARC

which connects computers on a network over a wired connection.
• It is a widely used LAN protocol, which is also known as Alto Aloha Network.
• It connects computers within the local area network and wide area network.
• Numerous devices like printers and laptops can be connected by LAN and WAN
 within buildings, homes, and even small neighborhoods.
• It offers a simple user interface that helps to connect various devices easily,
such as switches, routers, and computers.
• A local area network (LAN) can be created with the help of a single router and a
few Ethernet cables, which enable communication between all linked devices.
• This is because an Ethernet port is included in your laptop in which one end
of a cable is plugged in and connect the other to a router.
• Ethernet ports are slightly wider, and they look similar to telephone jacks.
 Different Types of Ethernet Networks

• An Ethernet device with CAT5/CAT6 copper cables is connected to a fiber optic cable
through fiber optic media converters.
• The distance covered by the network is significantly increased by this extension for fiber
optic cable.
• There are some kinds of Ethernet networks, which are discussed below:
• Fast Ethernet: • 100 is the maximum
• throughput, i.e. 100
This type of Ethernet is usually supported by a twisted pair or CAT5 cable,
Mbps,
• has the potential to transfer or receive data at around 100 Mbps. • BASE denoted use of
• The fiber optic cable and twisted pair cable are used by fast Ethernet to create communication.
baseband
• The 100BASE-TX, 100BASE-FX, and 100BASE-T4 are the three categories of transmission, and
Fast
Ethernet. • T4 denotes use of four
twisted pair cables in
Fast Ethernet.
 Different Types of Ethernet Networks

• Gigabit Ethernet:
• This type of Ethernet network is an upgrade from Fast Ethernet, which uses fiber optic cable and
twisted pair cable to create communication.
• It can transfer data at a rate of 1000 Mbps or 1Gbps.
• In modern times, gigabit Ethernet is more common. This network type also uses CAT5e or other
advanced cables, which can transfer data at a rate of 10 Gbps.
• The primary intention of developing the gigabit Ethernet was to full fill the user's
requirements, such as faster transfer of data, faster communication network, and more.
• 10-Gigabit Ethernet:
• This type of network can transmit data at a rate of 10 Gigabit/second, considered a more advanced
and high-speed network.
• It makes use of CAT6a or CAT7 twisted-pair cables and fiber optic cables as well.
• This network can be expended up to nearly 10,000 meters with the help of using a fiber optic cable.
• Switch Ethernet:
• This type of network involves adding switches or hubs, which helps to improve network throughput
as each workstation in this network can have its own dedicated 10 Mbps connection instead of sharing
the medium.
• Instead of using a crossover cable, a regular network cable is used when a switch is used in a network.
For the latest Ethernet, it supports 1000Mbps to 10 Gbps and 10Mbps to 100Mbps for fast Ethernet.
• Advantages of Ethernet:-
• It is not much costly to form an Ethernet network. As compared to other systems of connecting
computers, it is relatively inexpensive.
• Ethernet network provides high security for data as it uses firewalls in terms of data security.
• Also, the Gigabit network allows the users to transmit data at a speed of 1-100Gbps.
• In this network, the quality of the data transfer does maintain.
• In this network, administration and maintenance are easier.
• The latest version of gigabit ethernet and wireless ethernet have the potential to transmit data at the
speed of 1-100Gbps.
• Disadvantages of Ethernet:-
• It needs deterministic service; therefore, it is not considered the best for real-time
applications.
• The wired Ethernet network restricts you in terms of distances, and it is best for using in
short distances.
• If you create a wired ethernet network that needs cables, hubs, switches, routers, they
increase the cost of installation.
• Data needs quick transfer in an interactive application, as well as data is very small.
• In ethernet network, any acknowledge is not sent by receiver after accepting a packet.
• If you are planning to set up a wireless Ethernet network, it can be difficult if you have
no experience in the network field.
• Comparing with the wired Ethernet network, wireless network is not more secure.
• The full-duplex data communication mode is not supported by the 100Base-T4 version.
• Additionally, finding a problem is very difficult in an Ethernet network (if has), as it is not
easy to determine which node or cable is causing the problem.
 what is the Internet?
• The Internet is a computer network that interconnects hundreds of millions
of computing devices throughout the world.
• Not too long ago, these computing devices were primarily traditional desktop
PCs, Linux workstations, and so-called servers that store and transmit
information such as Web pages and e-mail messages.
• Increasingly, however, nontraditional Internet end systems such as laptops,
smartphones, tablets, TVs, gaming consoles, Web cams, automobiles,
environmental sensing devices, picture frames, and home electrical and
security systems are being connected to the Internet.
• Indeed, the term computer network is beginning to sound a bit dated, given
the many nontraditional devices that are being hooked up to the Internet. In
Internet, all of these devices are called hosts or end systems
• an Internet is an infrastructure that provides services to applications.
• These applications include electronic mail, Web surfing, social networks, instant messaging,
Voiceover-IP (VoIP), video streaming, distributed games, peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing,
television over the Internet, remote login, and much, much more.
• The applications are said to be distributed applications, since they involve multiple end
systems that exchange data with each other.
• Importantly, Internet applications run on end systems—they do not run in the packet switches
in the network core.
• Although packet switches facilitate the exchange of data among end systems, they are not
concerned with the application that is the source or sink of data.

• End systems attached to the Internet provide an Application Programming Interface (API) that
specifies how a program running on one end system asks the Internet infrastructure to deliver
• This Internet API is a set of rules that the sending program must follow so that the Internet
can deliver the data to the destination program data to a specific destination program running
on another end system.
 Wired LANs: Ethernet
• local area network (LAN) is a computer network that is designed for a limited geographic
area such as a building or a campus.
• Although a LAN can be used as an isolated network to connect computers in an
organization for the sole purpose of sharing resources, most LANs today are also linked to
a wide area network (WAN) or the Internet.

• IEEE STANDARDS
• In 1985, the Computer Society of the IEEE started a project, called Project 802, to set
standards to enable intercommunication among equipment from a variety of
manufacturers.
• Project 802 does not seek to replace any part of the OSI or the Internet model. Instead, it
is a way of specifying functions of the physical layer and the data link layer of major LAN
protocols..
• The standard was adopted by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). In 1987, the
International Organization for Standardization (ISO) also approved it as an international
standard under the designation ISO 8802.

• The relationship of the 802 Standard to the traditional OSI model is shown in Figure
• The IEEE has subdivided the data link layer into two sublayers: logical link control (LLC) and
media access control (MAC). IEEE has also created several physical layer standards for
different LAN protocols.
• Logical Link Control (LLC)
• The main functionality of the LLC layer is that it multiplexes the protocols over
the MAC layer while sending and de-multiplex the protocols while receiving. This
layer controls the flow control.
• The error-checking of the data link layer is performed by LLC. It can also track the
acknowledgments.
• While transmitting data, if LLC detects any frame loss, immediately it sends back
to the source to transmit over again. The LLC layer comes above the MAC layer
and acts as an interface between the upper layers and the MAC layer.
• Medium access control (MAC) sub layer
• MAC address is a unique address that is allocated to the NIC of the device. It is used as an
address to transmit data within ethernet or Wi-Fi.
• This layer acts as an interface between the physical layer and the LLC layer in the OSI model.
The main responsibility of the MAC layer is that it encapsulates the frames during
transmission 
• The MAC layer identifies and verifies the address of source stations and destinations. MAC
layer performs multiple access resolution when there are more data frames.
• MAC layer coordinates with the physical layer to seize a shared channel by using multiple
MAC entities to avoid collisions.
• Ethernet is an example of a medium that is defined through the MAC sublayer.
STANDARD ETHERNET
• The original Ethernet was created in 1976 Since then, it has gone through four
generations: Standard Ethernet (lot Mbps), Fast Ethernet (100 Mbps), Gigabit
Ethernet (l Gbps), and Ten-Gigabit Ethernet (l0 Gbps),
• MAC Sublayer
• In Standard Ethernet, the MAC sublayer governs the operation of the
access method. It also frames data received from the upper layer and
passes them to the physical layer.
• Frame Format
• The Ethernet frame contains seven fields: preamble, SFD, DA, SA, length or
type of protocol data unit (PDU), upper-layer data, and the CRC.
• Ethernet does not provide any mechanism for acknowledging received
frames, making it what is known as an unreliable medium.
Acknowledgments must be implemented at the higher layers. The format
of the MAC frame is shown
• Preamble:- The first field of the 802.3 frame contains 7 bytes (56 bits) of alternating 0s
and 1s that alerts the receiving system to the coming frame and enables it to
synchronize its input timing.
• The 56-bit pattern allows the stations to miss some bits at the beginning of the frame.
The preamble is actually added at the physical layer and is not (formally) part of the
frame.
• Start frame delimiter (SFD):- The second field (l byte: 10101011) signals the beginning
of the frame.
• The SFD warns the station or stations that this is the last chance for synchronization.
• The last 2 bits is 11 and alerts the receiver that the next field is the destination addr
ess.
• Destination address (DA):- The DA field is 6 bytes and contains the physical address of
the destination station or stations to receive the packet.
• Source address (SA):- The SA field is also 6 bytes and contains the physical address of
the sender of the packet.
• Length or type:- it defines the number of bytes in the data field.
• Data:- This field carries data encapsulated from the upper-layer protocols. It is a
• minimum of 46 and a maximum of 1500 bytes.
• CRC:- The last field contains error detection information

• Frame Length
• Ethernet has imposed restrictions on both the minimum and maximum lengths of a frame,
• An Ethernet frame needs to have a minimum length of 512 bits or 64 bytes. Part of this
length is the header and the trailer.
• If we count 18 bytes of header and trailer (6 bytes of source address, 6 bytes of
destination address, 2 bytes of length or type, and 4 bytes of CRC), then the minimum
length of data from the upper layer is 64 - 18 = 46 bytes.
• If the upper-layer packet is less than 46 bytes, padding is added to make up the difference.

• The standard defines the maximum length of a frame (without preamble and SFD field) as
1518 bytes. If we subtract the 18 bytes of header and trailer, the maximum length of the
payload is 1500 bytes.
• Addressing
• Each station on an Ethernet network (such as a PC, workstation, or printer) has its own
network interface card (NIC). The NIC fits inside the station and provides the station with a
6-byte physical address.
• Unicast, Multicast, and Broadcast Addresses
• A source address is always a unicast address-the frame comes from only one station. The
destination address, however, can be unicast, multicast, or broadcast.
• If the least significant bit of the first byte in a destination address is 0, the address is
unicast; otherwise, it is multicast.
CSMA CA and CSMA CD
• CSMA is a mechanism that senses the state of the shared channel to prevent or
recover data packets from a collision.
• It is also used to control the flow of data packets over the network so that the
packets are not get lost, and data integrity is maintained.
• In CSMA, when two or more data packets are sent at the same time on a
shared channel, the chances of collision occurred.
• Due to the collision, the receiver does not get any information regarding the
sender's data packets.
• And the lost information needs to be resented so that the receiver can get it.
Therefore we need to sense the channel before transmitting data packets on a
network. It is divided into two parts, CSMA CA (Collision Avoidance) and CSMA
CD (Collision Detection).
CSMA CD
• The Carrier Sense Multiple Access/ Collision Detection protocol is used to detect a
collision in the media access control (MAC) layer.
• Once the collision was detected, the CSMA CD immediately stopped the transmission
by sending the signal so that the sender does not waste all the time to send the data
packet.
• Suppose a collision is detected from each station while broadcasting the packets. In
that case, the CSMA CD immediately sends a jam signal to stop transmission and waits
for a random time context before transmitting another data packet.
• If the channel is found free, it immediately sends the data and returns it.
• Advantages of CSMA CD:
• It is used for collision detection on a shared channel within a very short time.
• CSMA CD is better than CSMA for collision detection.
• CSMA CD is used to avoid any form of waste transmission.
• It has lower CSMA CD overhead as compared to the CSMA CA.

• Disadvantage of CSMA CD
• It is not suitable for long-distance networks because as the distance increases,
CSMA CD' efficiency decreases.
• It can detect collision only up to 2500 meters, and beyond this range, it cannot
detect collisions.
• When multiple devices are added to a CSMA CD, collision detection performance
is reduced.
CSMA/CA
• CSMA stands for Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance.
• It means that it is a network protocol that uses to avoid a collision rather than allowing it
to occur, and it does not deal with the recovery of packets after a collision.
• It is similar to the CSMA CD protocol that operates in the media access control layer. In
CSMA CA, whenever a station sends a data frame to a channel, it checks whether it is in
use.
• If the shared channel is busy, the station waits until the channel enters idle mode.
• Hence, we can say that it reduces the chances of collisions and makes better use of the
medium to send data packets more efficiently.
• Advantage of CSMA CA
• When the size of data packets is large, the chances of collision in CSMA CA is less.
• It controls the data packets and sends the data when the receiver wants to send them.
• It is used to prevent collision rather than collision detection on the shared channel.
• CSMA CA avoids wasted transmission of data over the channel.
• It is best suited for wireless transmission in a network.
Categories of Standard Ethernet
• 10Base5: Thick Ethernet
• The first implementation is called 10BaseS, thick Ethernet, or Thicknet. The nickname
derives from the size of the cable, which is roughly the size of a garden hose and too
stiff to bend with your hands.
• 10BaseS was the first Ethernet specification to use a bus topology with an external
transceiver (transmitter/receiver) connected via a tap to a thick coaxial cable.
• The maximum length of the coaxial cable must not exceed 500 m, otherwise, there
• is excessive degradation of the signal. If a length of more than 500 m is needed, up to
• five segments, each a maximum of 5OO-meter, can be connected using repeaters
• 10Base2: Thin Ethernet
• The second implementation is called lOBase2, thin Ethernet, or Cheapernet. 1OBase2 also
uses a bus topology, but the cable is much thinner and more flexible.
• The cable can be bent to pass very close to the stations. In this case, the transceiver is
normally part of the network interface card (NIC), which is installed inside the station.
• Note that the collision here occurs in the thin coaxial cable.
• This implementation is more cost effective than 10BaseS because thin coaxial cable is less
expensive than thick coaxial and the tee connections are much cheaper than taps.
• Installation is simpler because the thin coaxial cable is very flexible. However, the length of
each segment cannot exceed 185 m.
• 10Base-T: Twisted-Pair Ethernet
• The third implementation is called 10Base-T or twisted-pair Ethernet. 10Base-T uses a
physical star topology. The stations are connected to a hub via two pairs of twisted
cable.
• Note that two pairs of twisted cable create two paths (one for sending and one for
receiving) between the station and the hub. Any collision here happens in the hub.
• The maximum length of the twisted cable here is defined as 100 m, to minimize the
effect of attenuation in the twisted cable.