A
common name for
Ethernet at a 100Mbps
signalling rate. Simply put, 10 times
faster than regular
ethernet. There are many different types of
media through which fast ethernet can traverse, some are 100base-TX, 100base-T4, 100base-FX, 100base-FL, and so on. Fast ethernet is
wonderful because it is
backwards compatible with regular
ethernet, in that a
Layer 2 switch can painlessly allow communication between Fast- and regular-Ethernet
segments.
Rather than create separate
nodes for these, I'll describe them right
here.
- 100base-TX: Fast ethernet over Category 5 UTP cable. This is the most common incarnation of Fast Ethernet.
- 100base-T4: More of a hack, this lets you push Fast Ethernet through Category 3 UTP cable. Much less common than 100base-TX; mostly used where there is a large installed base of Cat3 and upgrading would be too expensive.
- 100base-FX, 100base-FL: Fast ethernet over fiber-optic cable. This is commonly used in trunks between buildings. Fiber is safer to use between buildings than copper, since you don't have to worry about surges. It can also travel a greater distance.
Fast ethernet is becoming
obsolete almost as fast as it became
common. Soon,
gigabit ethernet will take the computing world by storm. Mmmm.. 100 megabytes/sec over the
network...