10 Gigabit Ethernet
10 Gigabit Ethernet
An Ethernet standard that transmits at 10 gigabits per second (10 Gbps). Introduced in 2002 and abbreviated "10 GbE," "10GE" or "10G Ethernet," it extended Gigabit Ethernet by 10-fold for high-speed storage networks (SANs), enterprise backbones, as well as wide area and metropolitan area networks. By 2016, five ISPs in the U.S. offered 10 GbE to business and residential customers. See Gigabit Ethernet, LAN, SAN, WAN and MAN.Full Duplex and No Collisions
10GbE works only in full-duplex mode and does not support CSMA/CD, the common Ethernet collision method used to gain access to the physical medium. A "WAN interface sublayer" (WIS) makes 10GbE compatible with the SONET transport at 10 Gbps (OC-192). See SONET.
Fiber or Copper
The 10GBASE-LX4 version (see below) carries four wavelengths of light on one pair of fibers. In 2004, 10GbE over copper wire was introduced. Using four twinaxial cables, the copper version was designed for short distances between switches and storage devices in the datacenter. See 25 Gigabit Ethernet, Ethernet and FCoE.
10GbE Over Copper Wire (802.3ak)(Datacenter use)Version Cable Max. Distance 10GBASE-CX4 Twinax 15 m 10GbE Over Fiber (802.3ae)Version Fiber Max. Distance 10GBASE-SR MMF/850 nm 65 m 10GBASE-LRM MMF/1310 nm 220 m 10GBASE-LRM MMF/850 nm 260 m 10GBASE-LX4 MMF/1310 nm 300 m 10GBASE-LR SMF/1310 nm 10 km 10GBASE-ER SMF/1550 nm 40 km 10GBASE-LX4 SMF/1310 nm 10 km 10GBASE-ZR** SMF/1550 nm 80 km 10GBE Over SONET Network 10GBASE-SW MMF/850 nm 65 m 10GBASE-LW SMF/1310 nm 10 km 10GBASE-EW SMF/1550 nm 40 km MMF = multimode fiber SMF = singlemode fiber ZR** = non standard