Ethernet is ubiquitous, flexible, simple and delivers true price/performance through enormous economies of scale. Today, Ethernet is moving into the home and into the carrier core, and all points in between.

From its origin more than 25 years ago, Ethernet has evolved to meet the increasing demands of packet-based networks. Due to its proven low implementation cost, reliability and relative simplicity of installation and maintenance, Ethernet's popularity has grown to the point that nearly all traffic on the Internet originates or terminates with an Ethernet connection.

The term Ethernet is synonymous with so many technologies. The Ethernet standard is IEEE Std. 802.3™-2005 plus any approved amendments or corrigendum and is developed by IEEE 802.3 Working Group. The cabling standards for the Ethernet media are developed by ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 25/WG 3 and TIA TR-42. There are a few standards for Ethernet Media Access Control (MAC) Clients. The most popular are the Provider Bridging standard developed by IEEE 802.1 Working Group and TCP/IP which is developed by the IETF.