Trendnet 21000BASE-T User Manual

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INTRODUCTION 
This chapter describes the features of the 24+4G-Port 
10/100/1000Mbps Gigabit Ethernet Web Smart Switch and some 
background information about Ethernet/Fast Ethernet/Gigabit Ethernet 
switching technology. 
Gigabit Ethernet Technology 
Gigabit Ethernet is an extension of IEEE 802.3 Ethernet utilizing the 
same packet structure, format, and support for CSMA/CD protocol, 
full duplex, flow control, and management objects, but with a tenfold 
increase in theoretical throughput over 100-Mbps Fast Ethernet and a 
hundredfold increase over 10-Mbps Ethernet. Since it is compatible 
with all 10-Mbps and 100-Mbps Ethernet environments, Gigabit 
Ethernet provides a straightforward upgrade without wasting a 
company’s existing investment in hardware, software, and trained 
personnel. 
The increased speed and extra bandwidth offered by Gigabit Ethernet 
is essential to coping with the network bottlenecks that frequently 
develop as computers and their busses get faster and more users use 
applications that generate more traffic. Upgrading key components, 
such as your backbone and servers to Gigabit Ethernet can greatly 
improve network response times as well as significantly speed up the 
traffic between your subnets.  
Gigabit Ethernet enables fast optical fiber connections to support 
video conferencing, complex imaging, and similar data-intensive 
applications. Likewise, since data transfers occur 10 times faster than 
Fast Ethernet, servers outfitted with Gigabit Ethernet NIC’s are able to 
perform 10 times the number of operations in the same amount of time.