Chapter 13

Wired LANs: Ethernet

13.1 Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.
 13-1 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 is a way of specifying
functions of the physical layer and the data link layer
of major LAN protocols. Adopted by ANSI in 1987,
ISO approved it as international standard ISO 8802.
Topics discussed in this section:
Data Link Layer
Physical Layer

13.2
 IEEE Standards
 Project 802
 standards for enabling intercommunication
among equipment from a variety of
manufacturers
 E.g.,
 IEEE 802.3  Ethernet
 IEEE 802.11  Wireless LAN (Wi-Fi)
 IEEE 802.15  Wireless PAN (Bluetooth, etc)

13.3
 Figure 13.1 IEEE standard for LANs

LLC – flow control, error control, part of framing. Provides one single data link
control for all IEEE LANs

MAC – Defines the specific access method for each type of LAN (Ethernet–
CSMA/CD, Token Ring and Token Bus-Token Passing). Provides part of framing
function.

13.4
 13-2 STANDARD ETHERNET

The original Ethernet was created in 1976 at Xerox’s

Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). Since then, it has
gone through four generations. We briefly discuss the
Standard (or traditional) Ethernet in this section.

Topics discussed in this section:

MAC Sublayer
Physical Layer

13.5
 Figure 13.3 Ethernet evolution through four generations

13.6
 Characteristics of the Standard Ethernet
 Connectionless and Unreliable Service
 Ethernet provides a connectionless service, which
means each frame sent is independent of the previous
or next frame. Ethernet has no connection establishment
or connection termination phases.
 Ethernet is also unreliable like IP and UDP.

 Characteristics of the Standard Ethernet.

1.10Mbps
2. CSMA/CD
3. UTP or Coax
4. Min frame size is 512 bits (64 bytes)
5. Max frame size is 12144 bits (1518 bytes)
6. 2500 meter distance between the furthest stations.
13.7
 Figure 13.4 802.3 MAC frame

Preamble–alert and synchronize the receiving system to coming frame

SFD-signals beginning of frame
DA- physical address of the destination
SA-physical address of the sender
Length or Type-type: define upper layer protocol, length: the number of bytes
in data field
Data-data encapsulated from upper layer (min 46 and max 1500 bytes)
CRC-error detection information

13.8
 Min and Max Frame Length

13.9
 Source: Cisco, Network Fundamentals

13.10
 Ethernet Addresses
 48 bits (6 bytes) in length
 Uniquely assigned to each Ethernet network interface card
(NIC)
 Usually written in hexadecimal notation

Figure 13.6 Example of an Ethernet address in hexadecimal notation

NIC – 6 byte (48 bits) physical address

13.11
 Unicast vs. Multicast Addresses
 A unicast address defines one recipient

 A multicast address defines a group of recipients

 The broadcast address defines a group of all

stations in the same LAN
 A special case of multicast addresses
 All bits are 1s

13.12
 Figure 13.7 Unicast and multicast addresses

Source address – only unicast

Destination address – unicast, multicast, broadcast

The least significant bit of the first byte

defines the type of address.
If the bit is 0, the address is unicast;
otherwise, it is multicast.

The broadcast destination address is a special case of the

multicast address in which all bits are 1s.

13.13
 Example 13.1

Define the type of the following destination addresses:

a. 4A:30:10:21:10:1A b. 47:20:1B:2E:08:EE
c. FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF
Solution
To find the type of the address, we need to look at the
second hexadecimal digit from the left. If it is even, the
address is unicast. If it is odd, the address is multicast. If
all digits are F’s, the address is broadcast. Therefore, we
have the following:
a. This is a unicast address because A in binary is 1010.
b. This is a multicast address because 7 in binary is 0111.
c. This is a broadcast address because all digits are F’s.
13.14
 Ethernet Origins

• IEEE 802.3, in general this is interchangeable

with the term Ethernet.
• In the early days, it was called 10BASE5.
• 10 = 10 Mbps (10 million bits per second)
• BASE = Baseband, one signal on the line at a
time.
• 5 = 500 meters of cable max
• The cable use was RG-6, became known as
thicknet.

13.15
 Ethernet Origins
• Another early Ethernet implementation was 10BASE2.
• 10 = 10 Mbps (10 million bits per second)
• BASE = Baseband, one signal on the line at a time.
• 2 = 185 meters of cable max

• The cable use was RG-58, became known as thinnet.

• 10BASE5 and 10BASE2 networks are rarely, if ever,

seen today. Other than their 10-Mbps bandwidth
limitation, the cables used by these network have been
replaced with either UTP or STP cables.

13.16
 Carrier Sense Multiple Access Collision
Detect (CSMA/CD)
• Ethernet was based on the philosophy that all
networked device should be eligible at any time, to
transmit on a network

• At the core of this philosophy is the bus topology

in which Ethernet was designed to operate.

• Ethernet permits only a single frame to be on a

network segment at any one time.

13.17
 Figure 13.8 Categories of Standard Ethernet (PHYSICAL LAYER)

13.18
 Implementation of standard Ethernet

13.19
 Figure 13.9 Encoding in a Standard Ethernet implementation

Use digital signaling (baseband) at 10Mbps

13.20
 Figure 13.10 10Base5 implementation

Known as Thicknet
Thick coaxial cable
Uses bus topology with external transceiver
Max length of each segment 500m

13.21
 Figure 13.11 10Base2 implementation

Knows as Thin Ethernet

Uses bus topology with thin and flexible cable
Transceiver – part of NIC
Max length of each segment 185m

13.22
 Figure 13.12 10Base-T implementation

Knows as twisted pair Ethernet

Uses physical star topology
Stations connected to hub
Max length 100m

13.23
 Figure 13.13 10Base-F implementation

Uses star topology

Stations connected to hub

13.24
 Table 13.1 Summary of Standard Ethernet implementations

13.25
 13-3 CHANGES IN THE STANDARD

The 10-Mbps Standard Ethernet has gone through

several changes before moving to the higher data
rates. These changes actually opened the road to the
evolution of the Ethernet to become compatible with
other high-data-rate LANs.

Topics discussed in this section:

Bridged Ethernet
Switched Ethernet
Full-Duplex Ethernet

13.26
 Figure 13.14 Sharing bandwidth

Each station average 5 Mbps-bandwidth

shared between stations

13.27
Bridges
 Link Layer devices: operate on Ethernet frames, examining
frame header and selectively forwarding frame based on its
destination
 Bridge isolates collision domains since it buffers frames
 When frame is to be forwarded on segment, bridge uses
CSMA/CD to access segment and transmit
 Bridge advantages:
 Isolates collision domains resulting in higher total max
throughput, and does not limit the number of nodes nor
geographical coverage
 Can connect different type Ethernet since it is a store and
forward device
 Transparent: no need for any change to hosts LAN adapters
 Bridged Ethernet

Figure 13.15 A network with and without a bridge

Bridged Ethernet – divides the network;

gain more bandwidth for each segment
13.29
 Figure 13.16 Collision domains in an unbridged network and a bridged network

Bridged Ethernet – separation of collision

domain – probability of collision reduced
13.30
 Figure 13.17 Switched Ethernet

Layer 2 switch is N port bridge that

allows faster handling of packets

13.31
 Figure 13.18 Full-duplex switched Ethernet

From switched to full duplex Ethernet, capacity is

increased.
No need to CSMA/CD anymore
13.32
 13-4 FAST ETHERNET

Fast Ethernet was designed to compete with LAN

protocols such as FDDI or Fiber Channel. IEEE
created Fast Ethernet under the name 802.3u. Fast
Ethernet is backward-compatible with Standard
Ethernet, but it can transmit data 10 times faster at a
rate of 100 Mbps.
Topics discussed in this section:
MAC Sublayer – Only star topology, half (use hub, CSMA/CD)
and full duplex (use switch, no need for CSMA/CD) mode
Autonegotiation – devices negotiates the mode or data
rate of operation
Physical Layer
13.33
 Figure 13.19 Fast Ethernet topology

13.34
 Figure 13.20 Fast Ethernet implementations

13.35
 Figure 13.21 Encoding for Fast Ethernet implementation

13.36
 Table 13.2 Summary of Fast Ethernet implementations

13.37
 13-5 GIGABIT ETHERNET

The need for an even higher data rate resulted in the

design of the Gigabit Ethernet protocol (1000 Mbps).
The IEEE committee calls the standard 802.3z.

Topics discussed in this section:

MAC Sublayer
Physical Layer
Ten-Gigabit Ethernet

13.38
 MAC Sublayer –full and half duplex
approach for medium access

In the full-duplex mode of Gigabit

Ethernet, there is no collision;
the maximum length of the cable is
determined by the signal attenuation
in the cable.

Half duplex – rare (not discussed)

13.39
 Figure 13.22 Topologies of Gigabit Ethernet

13.40
 Figure 13.23 Gigabit Ethernet implementations

13.41
 Figure 13.24 Encoding in Gigabit Ethernet implementations

13.42
 Table 13.3 Summary of Gigabit Ethernet implementations

13.43
 IEEE standard 802.3ae

MAC sublayer – full duplex, no CSMA/CD

Table 13.4 Summary of Ten-Gigabit Ethernet implementations

13.44