The Ethernet in its simplest form uses a passive bus that operates at 10 Mbps. The bus is formed from the co-axial cable, which connects all the PCs in the LAN.
Ethernet is a communication protocol that is embedded in software and hardware devices that intended.

A basic LAN consists of the following components.

• Two or more computers.
• Network Interface card or LAN Card in each PC.
• Ethernet cable (Cat5, UTP/SPT) cable to connect the two computers.
• A hub, switch or router to route or direct the network traffic.
• Software for the communication/computer networking.

A network interface card (NIC) is attached and installed in each PC and is assigned a unique address. An Ethernet cable is used to connect two computers; Ethernet cable has RJ45 connectors at both ends. There can be two scenarios 1. Two computers can directly connect with each other or 2. Each computer is directly connected with the hub/switch and hence communication occurs in the network. The hub or switch acts as relay.

Ethernet Terms
Ethernet follows a simple set of rules. To understand these rules its important to understand the

following terminology.

• Node – The devices that are attached to the segments are nodes.
• Frame – The nodes (computers or network devices) communicates in the form of short messages that are known as frames. The frames are chunks of information with variable size.
• Segment – A single shared medium is known as a Ethernet segment.

• Medium – The Ethernet devices are attached to a common medium. The frames of the data travel along with that medium. This medium can be coaxial cable. Today most commonly used communication mediums are UTP/STP cable, fiber optic cables.

Frames are analogous in human language. We have some rules for constructed the sentences. The

Ethernet protocol specifies a set of rules for constructing the frames. The frames length varies. Each frame must contain source and destination address for the identification of the recipient and the send of the message. The nodes can be uniquely and easily identified. Each Ethernet devices must have a single unique address.