10 Gigabit Ethernet

10 Gigabit Ethernet

An Ethernet standard that transmits at 10 Gbps. Introduced in 2002 and abbreviated "10 GbE," "10GE" or "10G Ethernet," it extended the familiar and ubiquitous Ethernet used in local area networks (LANs) to high-speed storage networks (SANs) as well as backbones in large enterprise networks and wide area and metropolitan area networks. See LAN, SAN, WAN and MAN.

Full Duplex and No Collisions
10G Ethernet 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 10G Ethernet 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, 10G Ethernet 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 Ethernet and FCoE.

 10G ETHERNET OVER FIBER (802.3ae)

          Fiber (F)  Fiber     Max
 Version  SONET (S)  Type    Distance

 10GBASE-SR   F   MMF/850 nm    65 m
 10GBASE-LRM  F   MMF/1310 nm  220 m
 10GBASE-LRM  F   MMF/850 nm   260 m
 10GBASE-LX4  F   MMF/1310 nm  300 m

 10GBASE-LR   F   SMF/1310 nm  10 km
 10GBASE-ER   F   SMF/1550 nm  40 km
 10GBASE-ZR** F   SMF/1550 nm  80 km
 10GBASE-LX4  F   SMF/1310 nm  10 km

 10GBASE-SW   S   MMF/850 nm   65 m

 10GBASE-LW   S   SMF/1310 nm  10 km
 10GBASE-EW   S   SMF/1550 nm  40 km

   MMF = multimode fiber
   SMF = singlemode fiber
   ZR** = non standard


 10G ETHERNET OVER COPPER (802.3ak)
  FOR DATACENTER USE

 Version      Cable    Max. Distance

 10GBASE-CX4  Twinax   15 m