It doesn’t seem so long ago that 100 Megabit per second Ethernet wasthe fastest you could get using the nearly 40-year-old standard. Now itlooks like Terabit Ethernet could be on the way.
Inthe mid-70s, researchers at an obscure photocopier manufacturer knownas Xerox invented Ethernet, which is essentially a method of avoidingcollisions in data transmissions.
During the dot-com boom, theGigabitEthernet standard was ratified, followed by 10Gigabit Ethernet a few years later.
Now, publishedreports indicate researchers in Denmark and Australia are working on awaveguidethat can de-multiplex 64 channels of 10 Gbps traffic, andexperts say this could pave the way for terabit Ethernet.
10Gigabit Ethernet is used on metro-area services, such as ManagedWave, a service offered by Cogeco Data Services, formerlyToronto Hydro Telecom.
With the amount of video passing overnetworks these days, it’s not a stretch to imagine users will soon wantterabit speeds using a protocol enterprise IT managers are aware of.