Types of Media used with Ethernet

The IEEE 802.2 specification describes the common properties of ethernet. Following standards describes how each media category will operate. Recently, ethernet can be run over thin-wire coaxial cable (10Base-2), voice grade twisted pair (10BASE-T), thick-wire coaxial cable (10Base-5) and fiber optic cable (10Base-F). The overwhelming majority of connections made today use twisted-pair wiring. This option is now offered as standard equipment on various workstation models.

Every media category has several signal properties and limits. For instance, (10BASE-T) just supports one machine per segment and is limited in distance to 100 meters. Thin wire (10BASE-2) can support up to 29 stations and is limited to a maximum distance of 185 meters. The Fiber optic cabling can support 1024 devices and could operate at distances up to 2 Kilometers. A Thickcoaxial cable (10BASE-5) could operate up to 500 meters and support up to 1024 stations.

Trancievers frequently permits dissimilar devices to be attached together. Several machines have a 15 pin Ethernet AUI interface. A Tranceivers exist that permits the users to adapt the AUI interface to whatever media you have running to the desktop.