Ethernet Turns 30

Some industry milestones are celebrated, while others go unnoticed. This month marks the 30th anniversary of Ethernet, the standard protocol for computer communication developed by Bob Metcalfe and David R. Boggs at Xerox PARC back in 1973. In many respects, it is an invisible standard, yet nearly all computers connected to the Internet use Ethernet.

A lot of companies and organizations have tried to come up with alternatives to Ethernet. I remember IBM's Token-Ring, which we used at PC Magazine for a few years in the early 1990s. But the alternatives eventually faded from the scene, because Ethernet was always less complicated and more standardized, making it less expensive for users.

Over the years, Ethernet speed has increased, though the actual method of information transfer—Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Detection (CSMA/CD)—has remained the same. The initial test versions of Ethernet ran at 3 Mbps, and the first commercial versions ran at 10 Mbps. Today's standard is 10/100 Mbps, with Gigabit Ethernet used to connect servers in the back office and 10-Gigabit Ethernet on the way. Even 802.11, the standard protocol used for Wi-Fi, is referred to as wireless Ethernet.

The basic technology that Metcalfe and Boggs built into Ethernet has withstood the test of time—proof of the original specification's elegance and the power of standards.