High-speed Access With Gige Networking

Anybody who works with computer networks knows about that need for speed. Using the slow-poke network technology of only a couple of decades ago, it would take entirely too long to transfer the huge data files that are commonly generated today. GigE, short for "Gigabit Ethernet", network technology will speed things up substantially.

When personal computer networking began, there were three major competing standards. Ethernet started out with a top speed of ten Megabits per second, while Token Ring and Token Bus started with speeds of four Megabits, and later increased to 16 Megabits. Eventually though, Ethernet became much more popular and all but put the Token technologies out of business. Ethernet is still the dominant networking technology.

While these slow speeds were fine for their time, they wouldn't do at all for today's networks. Nowadays, pretty much every office worker has a computer, and data files can be quite large. Transferring a large amount of data from one computer to another would just take too long with those old-style networks.

Later on, 100 Megabit per second networking was developed, which gave a massive boost in speed. That helped out tremendously in the office, but for some purposes, that still wasn't enough. For scientific computing, where extremely large data files are transferred, and for high-performance clusters where near instantaneous communications are a must, Gigabit speed networks could work quite nicely. Also, the old 100 Megabit technology was entirely too slow to use as an Internet backbone.

The first Gigabit Ethernet standard came out in 1998, and was given the 1000BASE-X designation. While it may have been fine for either building out a brand-new network or for Internet backbone lines, its use of fiber optic cable made it impractical to upgrade existing twisted-pair wire networks in the office. So, the following year, the Gigabit twisted-pair wire standard was introduced, with the designation 1000BASE-T.

Most new computers now come equipped with built-in Gigabit Ethernet adapters. For enterprise use, Gigabit-class network equipment is available from many different vendors. Switches with 24 or more ports sell for anywhere from several hundred to several thousand dollars. For small office and home use, five-port and eight-port switches are available for anywhere from 35 to 60 dollars. Since this new technology is backward compatible, you can use it in the same network as older, slower equipment if you have to.

In 2002, the 10 Gigabit fiber optic standard came on-line. Currently, it's still a bit too expensive to use in the office. So for now, it's being used to upgrade Internet backbone lines.

If you have a need for high-performance networking technology, you'll find lots of information on the World Wide Web. You can use your preferred search engine to look up GigE products.