Introduction to Ethernet Cable Standards

Introduction to Ethernet Cable Standards

Currently, mature Ethernet physical layer standards are:

• 10BASE-2

• 10BASE-5

• 10BASE-T

• 10BASE-F

• 100BASE-T4

• 100BASE-TX

• 100BASE-FX

• 1000BASE-SX

• 1000BASE-LX

• 1000BASE-TX

• 10GBASE-T

• 10GBASE-LR

• 10GBASE-SR

In the preceding standards, 10, 100, 1000 and 10G stand for transmission rates, and BASE represents baseband.

• 10M Ethernet cable standards

  Table 1-1 lists the 10M Ethernet cable standards defined in IEEE 802.3.

  Table 1-1 10M Ethernet cable standards

  Name	Cable	Maximum Transmission Distance
  10BASE-5	Thick coaxial cable	500 m
  10BASE-2	Thin coaxial cable	200 m
  10BASE-T	Twisted pair cable	100 m
  10BASE-F	Fiber	2000 m

  Coaxial cables have a fatal defect: Devices are connected in series and therefore a single-point failure can cause the breakdown of the entire network. As the physical standards of coaxial cables, 10BASE-2 and 10BASE-5 have fallen into disuse.

• 100M Ethernet cable standards

  100M Ethernet is also called Fast Ethernet (FE). Compared with 10M Ethernet, 100M Ethernet has a faster transmission rate at the physical layer, but they have no difference at the data link layer.

  Table 1-2 lists the 100M Ethernet cable standards.

  Table 1-2 100M Ethernet cable standards

  Name	Cable	Maximum Transmission Distance
  100Base-T4	Four pairs of Category 3 twisted pair cables	100 m
  100Base-TX	Two pairs of Category 5 twisted pair cables	100 m
  100Base-FX	Single-mode fiber or multi-mode fiber	2000 m

  Both 10Base-T and 100Base-TX apply to Category 5 twisted pair cables. They have different transmission rates. The 10Base-T transmits data at 10 Mbit/s, whereas the 100Base-TX transmits data at 100 Mbit/s.

  The 100Base-T4 is rarely used now.

• Gigabit Ethernet cable standards

  Gigabit Ethernet is developed on the basis of the Ethernet standard defined in IEEE 802.3. Based on the Ethernet protocol, Gigabit Ethernet increases the transmission rate to 10 times the FE transmission rate, reaching 1 Gbit/s. Table 1-3 lists the Gigabit Ethernet cable standards.

  Table 1-3 Gigabit Ethernet cable standards

  Interface Name	Cables	Maximum Transmission Distance
  1000Base-LX	Single-mode fiber or multi-mode fiber	316 m
  1000Base-SX	Multi-mode fiber	316 m
  1000Base-TX	Category 5 twisted pair cable	100 m

  Gigabit Ethernet technology can upgrade the existing Fast Ethernet from 100 Mbit/s to 1000 Mbit/s.

  The physical layer of Gigabit Ethernet uses 8B10B coding. In traditional Ethernet technology, the data link layer delivers 8-bit data sets to its physical layer. After processing the data sets, the physical layer sends them to the data link layer. The data sets are still 8 bits after processing.

  The situation is different on the Gigabit Ethernet of optical fibers. The physical layer maps the 8-bit data sets transmitted from the data link layer to 10-bit data sets and then sends them out.

• 10G Ethernet cable standards

  10G Ethernet is currently defined in supplementary standard IEEE 802.3ae, which will be combined with IEEE 802.3 later. Table 1-4 lists the 10G Ethernet cable standards.

  Table 1-4 10G Ethernet cable standards

  Name	Cables	Maximum Transmission Distance
  10GBASE-T	CAT-6A or CAT-7	100 m
  10GBase-LR	Single-mode optical fiber	10 km
  10GBase-SR	Multi-mode optical fiber	Several hundred meters

• 100G Ethernet cable standards

  The standard for 40G/100G Ethernet is defined in IEEE 802.3ba, which was published in 2010. 100G Ethernet will be widely used as network technologies develop.