Chapter 6

Wired LANs: Ethernet

13.1 Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.
 6-1 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.

Topics discussed in this section:

Data Link Layer
Physical Layer

6.2
 Figure 6.1 IEEE standard for LANs

6.3
 Figure 6.2 HDLC frame compared with LLC and MAC frames

6.4
 6-2 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

6.5
 Figure 6.3 Ethernet evolution through four generations

6.6
 Figure 6.4 802.3 MAC frame

6.7
 802.3 MAC frame fields

o Preamble: It contains 7 bytes (56 bits) of alternating 0’s and 1’s that alerts the
receiving system to the coming frame and enables it to synchronize its input
timing.
o 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 address.
o Destination address (DA): The DA field is 6 bytes and contains the physical
address of the destination station or stations to receive the packet.
o Source address (SA): The SA field is also 6 bytes and contains the physical
address of the sender of the packet.

6.8
 802.3 MAC frame fields

o Length or type: This field is defined as a type field or length field. The original
Ethernet used this field as the type field to define the upper-layer protocol using the
MAC frame. The IEEE standard used it as the length field to define the number of
bytes in the data field. Both uses are common today.
o Data: This field carries data encapsulated from the upper-layer protocols. It is a
minimum of 46 and a maximum of 1500 bytes.
o CRC: The last field contains error detection information, in this case a CRC-32

6.9
 Figure 6.5 Minimum and maximum lengths

6.10
 Note

Frame length:
Minimum: 64 bytes (512 bits)
Maximum: 1518 bytes (12,144 bits)

6.11
 Figure 6.6 Example of an Ethernet address in hexadecimal notation

6.12
 Figure 6.7 Unicast and multicast addresses

6.13
 Note

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.

6.14
 Note

The broadcast destination address is a

special case of the multicast address in
which all bits are 1s.

6.15
 Example 6.1

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.
6.16
 Example 6.2

Show how the address 47:20:1B:2E:08:EE is sent out on

line.

Solution
The address is sent left-to-right, byte by byte; for each
byte, it is sent right-to-left, bit by bit, as shown below:

6.17
 Figure 6.8 Categories of Standard Ethernet

6.18
 Figure 6.9 Encoding in a Standard Ethernet implementation

6.19
 Figure 6.10 10Base5 implementation

6.20
 Figure 6.11 10Base2 implementation

6.21
 Figure 6.12 10Base-T implementation

6.22
 Figure 6.13 10Base-F implementation

6.23
 Table 6.1 Summary of Standard Ethernet implementations

6.24
 6-3 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

6.25
 Figure 6.14 Sharing bandwidth

6.26
 Figure 6.15 A network with and without a bridge

6.27
 Figure 6.16 Collision domains in an unbridged network and a bridged network

6.28
 Figure 6.17 Switched Ethernet

6.29
 Figure 6.18 Full-duplex switched Ethernet

6.30
 6-4 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
Physical Layer

6.31
 Goals of Fast Ethernet

The goals of Fast Ethernet can be summarized as follows:

1. Upgrade the data rate to 100 Mbps.
2. Make it compatible with Standard Ethernet.
3. Keep the same 48-bit address.
4. Keep the same frame format.
5. Keep the same minimum and maximum frame lengths.

6.32
 Figure 6.19 Fast Ethernet topology

6.33
 Figure 6.20 Fast Ethernet implementations

6.34
 Figure 6.21 Encoding for Fast Ethernet implementation

6.35
 Table 6.2 Summary of Fast Ethernet implementations

6.36
 6-5 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

6.37
 Goals of Gigabit Ethernet

The goals of the Gigabit Ethernet design can be summarized as follows:

1. Upgrade the data rate to 1 Gbps.
2. Make it compatible with Standard or Fast Ethernet.
3. Use the same 48-bit address.
4. Use the same frame format.
5. Keep the same minimum and maximum frame lengths.
6. To support auto-negotiation as defined in Fast Ethernet.

6.38
 Note

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.

6.39
 Figure 6.22 Topologies of Gigabit Ethernet

6.40
 Figure 6.23 Gigabit Ethernet implementations

6.41
 Figure 6.24 Encoding in Gigabit Ethernet implementations

6.42
 Table 6.3 Summary of Gigabit Ethernet implementations

6.43
 Goals of Ten-Gigabit Ethernet
The goals of the Ten-Gigabit Ethernet design can be summarized as
follows:
1. Upgrade the data rate to 10 Gbps.
2. Make it compatible with Standard, Fast, and Gigabit Ethernet.
3. Use the same 48-bit address.
4. Use the same frame format.
S. Keep the same minimum and maximum frame lengths.
6. Allow the interconnection of existing LANs into a metropolitan area
network (MAN) or a wide area network (WAN).
7. Make Ethernet compatible with technologies such as Frame Relay and
ATM
6.44
 Table 6.4 Summary of Ten-Gigabit Ethernet implementations

6.45