IEEE Ethernet standards

Ethernet is defined in a number of IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) 802.3 standards. These standards define the physical and data-link layer specifications for Ethernet. The most important 802.3 standards are:

• 10Base-T (IEEE 802.3) – 10 Mbps with category 3 unshielded twisted pair (UTP) wiring, up to 100 meters long.
• 100Base-TX (IEEE 802.3u) – known as Fast Ethernet, uses category 5, 5E, or 6 UTP wiring, up to 100 meters long.
• 100Base-FX (IEEE 802.3u) – a version of Fast Ethernet that uses multi-mode optical fiber. Up to 412 meters long.
• 1000Base-CX (IEEE 802.3z) – uses copper twisted-pair cabling. Up to 25 meters long.
• 1000Base-T (IEEE 802.3ab) – Gigabit Ethernet that uses Category 5 UTP wiring. Up to 100 meters long.
• 1000Base-SX (IEEE 802.3z) – 1 Gigabit Ethernet running over multimode fiber-optic cable.
• 1000Base-LX (IEEE 802.3z) – 1 Gigabit Ethernet running over single-mode fiber.
• 10GBase-T (802.3.an) – 10 Gbps connections over category 5e, 6, and 7 UTP cables.

Notice how the first number in the name of the standard represents the speed of the network in megabits per second. The word base refers to baseband, meaning that the signals are transmitted without modulation. The last part of the standard name refers to the cabling used to carry signals. For example, 1000Base-T means that the speed of the network is up to 1000 Mbps, baseband signaling is used, and the twisted-pair cabling will be used (T stands for twisted-pair).