Fast Ethernet
Fast Ethernet, as the name suggests, transfers data at a faster rate than Standard Ethernet. It can transfer data at the rate of 100Mbit/s, which is 10 times more, than the speed of Standard Ethernet. The different types of Fast Ethernets are:
- 100BASE-TX: Uses two pairs of category 5 (data transfer at frequencies up to 100 MHz) UTP cable or higher to transfer data. Both the pairs are used for transmitting and receiving data. 100BASE-TX is commonly used in office networks.
- OOBASE-T2: Uses two pairs of category 3 (data transfer at frequencies up to 16 MHz) UTP cable. Both the pairs are used for transmitting and receiving data.
- 100BASE-T4: Uses 4 pairs of category 3 UTP cables. One pair is used for data transmission, one is used for data receiving, and the left two pairs are used for switch direction to exchange data.
- 100BASE-FX: Uses two pairs of fiber optical cable. One pair is used for data transmission and other is used for receiving data. The maximum length of 100BASE-FX is 400 meters for half-duplex connections (allow communication in both direction but one at a time) and 2 kilometers for full-duplex (allows communication in both directions simultaneously) over multi-mode fiber optical cable (used short distance).
- 1GOBASE-SX: Uses two pairs of multi-mode fiber optical cable. The maximum length of 100BASE-SX is up to 550 meters. This standard of Ethernet supports shorter distance of networking.
- 100BASE-BX: Uses a one pair of fiber optical cable with a multiplexer (a device that selects several input signals and forwards the selected input into a single line. which splits the signal into two wavelengths- transmit and receive. The transmit wavelength uses 1550 nanometer (nm) wavelength for transmitting data, while the receive wavelength uses 1310 nm wavelength for receiving data.
- 100BASE-LX10: Uses two pairs of single-mode optical fibers. It exchanges data up to a distance of 10 km and a wavelength of 1310 nm.
