IEEE 802 STANDARDS BASIC INFORMATION AND TUTORIALS

The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) Committee 802 was formed at the beginning of the 1980s to develop standards for emerging technologies. The IEEE fostered the development of local area networking equipment from different vendors that can work together.

In addition, IEEE LAN standards provided a common design goal for vendors to access a relatively larger market than if proprietary equipment were developed. This, in turn, enabled economies of scale to lower the cost of products developed for larger markets.

The IEEE Committee 802 published draft standards for CSMA/CD and Token Bus local area networks in I982. Standard 802.3, which describes a baseband CSMA/CD network similar to Ethernet, was published in 1983.

IEEE               Series 802 committees

802.1               High Level Interface

802.2               Logical Link Control

802.3               CSMA/CD

802.4               Token-Passing Bus

802.5               Token-Passing Ring

802.6               Metropolitan Area Networks

802.7               Broadband Technical Advisory Group

802.8               Fiber Optic Technical Advisory Group

802.9               Integrated Voice and Data Networks

802.10             Network Security

802.11             Wireless LANs

802.12             100VG-AnyLAN

Since then, several addenda to the 802.3 standard have been adopted to govern the operation of CSMA/CD on different types of media. Those addenda include: 10BASE-2 which defines a 10 Mbps baseband network operating on thin coaxial cable; 1BASE-5, which defines a 1 Mbps baseband network operating on twisted-pair; 10BASE-T, which defines a 10 Mbps baseband network operating on twisted-pair; and 10BROAD-36, which defines a broadband 10 Mbps network that operates on thick coaxial cable.

The next standard published by the IEEE was 802.4, which describes a token-passing bus-oriented network for both baseband and broadband transmission. This standard is similar to the Manufacturing Automation Protocol (MAP) standard developed by General Motors.

The third LAN standard published by the IEEE was based upon IBM’s specifications for its Token-Ring network. Known as the 802.5 standard, it defines the operation of token-ring networks on shielded twisted-pair cable at data rates of 1 and 4 Mbps.

That standard was modified to acknowledge three IBM enhancements to Token-Ring network operations. These enhancements include the 16 Mbps operating rate, the ability to release a token early on a 16 Mbps network, and a bridge routing protocol known as source routing.

In late 1992 Grand Junction proposed to the IEEE a method for operating Ethernet at 100 Mbps. At approximately the same time, AT&T and Hewlett-Packard proposed a different method to the IEEE which was originally named 100BaseVG, with VG referencing voice grade twisted pair cable. IBM joined AT&T and HP, adding support for Token-Ring to 100BaseVG, resulting in the proposed standard having its name changed to 100VG-AnyLAN in recognition of its ability to support either Ethernet or Token-Ring. Due to the merits associated with each proposed standard, the IEEE approved both in 1995.

100Base-T, also commonly referred to as Fast Ethernet, was approved as an update to 802.3. The specification for 100VG-AnyLAN was approved as 802.12.

Other Ethernet-related standards include Fast Ethernet which is denoted as 802.3# and was published as an addendum to the 802.3 standard in 1995, and the Gigabit Ethernet standard which was published in 1998. The latter did not define 1 Gbps transmission over copper pair wire, which required a new standard referred to as 802.3ab which was published in 1999.