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Ethernet types

 

Note: MBps is MegaBytes/s. Mbps is Megabits/sec. there are 8 bits per byte.

Wired Ethernet Standards
ieee
designation
speed description
    10Base5, coax you drilled into to tap into. old.
802.3 10Mbps (1.25MBps) 10Base. old.
802.3u 100Mbps(12.5MBps) 100Base
802.3ab 1Gbps(125MBps) 1000Base
  10Mbps(1.25MBps) 10Base2 old.
  10Mbps(1.25MBps) 10BROAD36 Obsolete. An early standard supporting Ethernet over longer distances.
  10Mbps(1.25MBps) 10BASE2 (aka ThinNet or Cheapernet) -- 50-ohm coax cable, using T-connectors at each station. old.
[802.3] 10Mbps(1.25MBps) 10BASE-T-- runs over 4 wires (two twisted pairs) on a cat-3 or cat-5 cable. RJ45 connector. old.
  1Mbps(125KBps) 1BASE5 old.
[802.3ab] 1Gbps(125MBps) 1000BASE-T-- 1 Gbit/s over cat-5 copper cabling.
[802.2u] 100Mbps(12.5MBps) 100BASE-T -- A term for any of the three standard for 100 Mbit/s Ethernet over twisted pair cable. Includes 100BASE-TX, 100BASE-T4 and 100BASE-T2.
All the rest of the ethernet standards like 10Gbit are fiber.
Some content for this table borrowed from Wikipedia Ethernet article.


802.11 (Wireless) Ethernet Standards
801.11 protocol Freq
(GHz)
Throughput
(Mbps)
Data
Mbps
802.11 2.4 0.9 2
a 5 23 54
b 2.4 4.3 11
g 2.4 19 54
n 2.4,5 74 248
y 3.7 23 54
802.11 table borrowed from Wikipedia entry on 802.11 .

In the above article it states that the 802.11n regular standard will be released around June 2009. What this means is either new hardware or new firmware & new adapter cd's/driver downloads some time after the standard is released. It could be 2 years till you see patches & new products released after 2009.

Notice that with wireless you get a lot less bandwidth for your money!

check out this Wikipedia page on Wired Ethernet - it covers Appletalk 802.2/SNAP, Netware protocol, and other Ethernet networking protocols.