The chair of the Gigabit Ethernet task force and chief technical editor of
the standard (IEEE 802.3z) summarize changes in the data-link and physical
network layers of the newest standard in the world's most widely deployed L
AN technology. The changes include two to the Ethernet's essential Carrier
Sense Multiple Access with Collision Detection (CSMA/CD) protocol to better
support its use in enterprise backbones, as it scales up two orders of mag
nitude-to 1,000 Mbps, while maintaining compatibility with the installed ba
se of 10 and 100 Mbps Ethernet systems.
The authors also introduce the draft standard for the 1000Base-T supplement
to Gigabit Ethernet, which will open up the possibility of gigabit communi
cation over ordinary building wires.