Introduced in 1973 by Robert Metcalfe in his PhD thesis. Named after ether the imaginary substance. Became the IEEE 802.3 Standard.
Dominant in the industry because:
- cheap
- simple (compared to token LANs, ATMs)
- good performance (10Mbps - 10Gbps)
Frame structure
Section titled “Frame structure”Includes:
- preamble
- destination address
- source address
- type/length field
- data/payload
- frame check sequence (FCS)
Preamble
Section titled “Preamble”7 bytes with pattern 10101010 followed by one byte with pattern 10101011. Used to synchronize receiver, sender clock rates.
Address
Section titled “Address”6 byte source and destination MAC addresses are included.
Indicates the higher layer protocol.
Examples: IP, Novell IPX, AppleTalk.
To check if there are any errors with the frame. If so, the frame is discarded.