Networking

10 Gigabit Ethernet

As the name suggests, 10 Gigabit Ethernet, which is referred to as 10GbE, has the capability to provide data transmission rates of up to 10 Gigabits per second. 10 Gigabit Ethernet is defined in the IEEE 802.3ae standard.

There are a number of 10GbE implementations. Of these standards, 10BaseSR is designed for LAN or MAN implementations, with a maximum distance of 300 meters using 50 micron multimode fiber-optic cabling. 10BaseSR can also be implemented with 62.5 micron multimode fiber, but is limited to 33 meters in this configuration.

10GBaseLR and 10GBaseER are designed for use in MAN and WAN implementations, and are implemented using single mode fiber-optic cabling. 10GBaseLR has a maximum distance of 10km, whereas 10GBaseER has a maximum distance of 40km. Table 6.

Table 6 Summary of IEEE 802.3ae 10 Gigabit Ethernet Characteristics

10GBaseSR

10GBaseLR

10GBaseER

Transmission Method

Baseband

Baseband

Baseband

Speed

10000Mbps

10000Mbps

10000Mbps

Distance Cable Type

33m/300m

10,000m

40,000m

50 or 62.5 micron

Single Mode

Single Mode

multimode

fiber

fiber

Fibre/50 Micron

Multimode fiber

Connector Type

Fiber connectors

Fiber connectors

Fiber connectors