Expanding from its 10Mbit/s local area network (LAN) roots to 100Mbit/s and recently to 1Gbit/s, Ethernet now looks set to displace many rival technologies in wide area networks (WAN). With this in mind, many leading firms in the networking market are already working to a proposed standard for 10Gbit/s Ethernet. The standards body overseeing the development of 10 Gigabit Ethernet, working under the designation IEEE 802.3ae, expects ratification to be completed in early 2002.
With the introduction of gigabit technology, it became possible to create high-speed network backbones using optical fibre, but even this was considered too slow for applications needing to transmit data over long distances. Many metropolitan area networks (MAN) and WAN technologies are converging on data rates around 10Gbit/s as the optimal solution for present and foreseeable needs, and with the development of IEEE 802.3ae, Ethernet should be well placed to become the standard of choice for enterprise communications.
