16 Advantages and Disadvantages of Ethernet | With Its Characteristics

What is Ethernet?

Ethernet is Local Area Network (LAN) technology. It is a system with protocol to connect multiple systems on the LAN network connection. Apart from LAN, it is also used in  Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) and Wide Area Network (WAN) network.

Robert Metcalfe invented Ethernet technology. It is standardized as  IEEE 802.3.

Characteristics of Ethernet:

• Ethernet operates at link layer in TCP/IP model architecture.
• Ethernet offers connectionless communication.
• Before transferring any data over the network, system checks if access medium is free to transfer data. It determines free medium using Carrier Sense Multiple Access/Collision Detection (CSMA/CD).
• It is built on a star topology.

Related Read:

• 3 Major Importance of Network Topology in Network Evolution.
• Difference Between Physical and Logical Topology

Types of Ethernet:

Ethernet is of two as per the cable use to connect systems over the network

• Twisted Pair Ethernet connection
• Fiber Optic Ethernet connection

There are three types of Ethernet- Basic, Fast and Gigabit. 

These categories are based on the data transfer speed.

• Basic ethernet is slowest among all, which provide the s speed of 10Mbps.
• Fast Ethernet provides speed of 100Mbps, which is intermediate between basic and Gigabit network
• Gigabit has the highest data transfer speed of 1Gbps. This speed is 1o times more than Fast Ethernet.

Today, the speed of the Gigabit Ethernet has increased to 100 Gbps. It is massive speed.

Gigabit Ethernet operates with the Twisted pair cable as well as Fiber Optic Cable, smoothly.

These Frame sizes and bandwidths are calculated so that frame should not collide and should provide higher performance.

Fiber optic gives a higher performance as it has good electrical isolation. It can cover the distance up to 10 kilometers with the latest fiber optic mechanism.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Ethernet:

As it is being LAN technology, speed, durability, maintenance cost and data transfer quality are the major parameters to make the decision.

Advantages of Ethernet:

1. To form an Ethernet, we do not need much cost. It is relatively inexpensive. It is costless as compare to other systems of connecting computers.
2. In Ethernet, all the node have same privileges. It does not follow client-server architecture.
3. It does not require any switches or hubs
4. Maintenance and administration are simple.
5. The cable used to connect systems in ethernet is robust to noise.
6. As it is robust to the noise, the quality of the data transfer does not degrade. The data transfer quality is good.
7. With Gigabit network, use can transfer data with the speed of 1-100Gbps.

Disadvantages of Ethernet:

8. It offers nondeterministic service.
9. It does not hold good for real-time applications as it requires deterministic service.
10. As network cannot set priority for the packets, it is not suitable for a client-server architecture.
11. In an interactive application, data is very small and need quick data transfer. In ethernet, there is a limit of the minimum size of the frame to 46B. The result of that, it is not a good choice for interactive applications.
12. If you are using it for interactive applications, you have to feed dummy data to make the frame size 46B which is mandatory.
13. Not suitable for traffic intensive applications. If the traffic on the Ethernet increases, the efficiency of the Ethernet goes down.
14. It provides connectionless communication over the network.
15. After receiving a packet, the receiver doesn’t send any acknowledge.
16. If there is any problem in ethernet, it is difficult to troubleshoot what cable or node in the network causing an actual problem.

You May Like to Read:

• 14 Difference Between TCP and UDP Protocol
• 12 Advantages and Disadvantages of OSI model Layered Architecture

This is all about advantages and disadvantages of Ethernet. If you are planning to set Ethernet LAN connection, you can ponder on these points.  For any doubt, please write in a comment.