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COMP-CO910
Introduction to Networking

Module 9: Ethernet vs. Wi-Fi

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Today’s Agenda
• An overview of major network types, leading to a high-level
exploration of the two you’re most likely to encounter:
 Ethernet (wired)
 Wi-Fi (wireless)
• We’ll look at them as technologies, recalling some of the
details we’ve already discussed
• We’ll look at the similarities and differences
• We’ll note the downsides to each type
• What are the usage cases for each type?
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Network Types
• Sometimes, when we’re down in the weeds trying to solve
problems or maximize performance, it’s easy to overlook the
simple fact that the purpose of a network is to transmit data!
• Throughout the history of computer networking there have
been many techniques and technologies created and deployed
to do this in a fast, predictable, and (most importantly) reliable
way
 It’s worth getting at least a birds-eye view of the various LAN technologies
that you may encounter in the wild (or just hear war stories about)
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Network Types: Token Ring

• One type that you are quite unlikely to encounter, but will likely
hear many tales about, is Token Ring
• Developed by IBM in the 1980’s as competition to Ethernet
(which is what we use today – and we’ll be circling back to it
shortly)
• Token Ring literally connected computers together in a ring
shape (although, you could use a similar wiring style as we use
today by locating the ring within separate hardware and
running a single wire to each node)
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Network Types: Token Ring

• It was designed to combat the slowdown prevalent on Ethernet
as the traffic increased – an Ethernet network of the time
would pretty much slow to unusability and stop functioning at
60% utilization, while Token Ring would run at full speed even
at 75-90% utilization
• It used a simple principle to achieve this: the only way a node
would be allowed to transmit is if it held a digital “token”, and
as soon as it transmitted (or if it didn’t need to transmit) it
would hand the token to the next node in the ring, and so on…
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Network Types: Token Ring

• This sounds like a pretty good system, right?
• In fact, it was much faster (16 Million bits-per-second (Mbps))
than Ethernet at the time (about 10 Mbps)
• Why aren’t we still deploying it? Cost and speed!
• IBM’s licensing terms at the time made any Token Ring
hardware between 5 and 10 times the price of the equivalent
Ethernet hardware (cabling costs were roughly equivalent)
• It did not take long for competing technologies to overtake
the speed advantage offered by Token Ring
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Network Types: Token Ring

• Token Ring is remembered fondly in a famous Dilbert cartoon:

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Network Types: FDDI

• A relative of Token Ring, FDDI (Fiber Distributed Data Interface)
arrived in the late 1980’s/early 1990’s
• Using a similar approach as Token Ring, FDDI used two rings,
each of which offered speeds up to 100 Mbps
• The two ring approach allowed the network connection to
continue to operate even if one ring failed – but, if both rings
were running they could combine their capabilities and operate
at 200 Mbps

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Network Types: FDDI

• As the name implies, FDDI used fiber optic cable as its network
media – this allowed for very long links (up to 200 km!)
 Eventually, a copper cable version was developed (fiber is tricky to deploy
and comparatively fragile, so this development made sense); it was not
very popular and is generally forgotten
• The built-in redundancy and, for the era, very high performance of
two rings made FDDI an attractive choice for CAN “backbone” links
(remember, at full speed it was over 12 times faster than Token Ring)
• Like Token Ring, the speed advantage of FDDI was eventually
overtaken by other technologies
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Network Types: ATM

• Also arriving in the late 1980’s/early 1990’s (and still in use
today) was ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode)
• ATM was developed to facilitate the movement of both
standard data traffic (e.g. copying large files, sending jobs to
network-connected printers, etc.) and real-time/low-latency
traffic (e.g. voice, video, etc.)
• Its secret sauce is to break down all data needing to be
transmitted into 53-byte fixed-size frames, then to prioritize
the delivery of the real-time traffic
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Network Types: ATM

• ATM became popular when companies began to use ISDN
(Integrated Services Digital Network) links that were typically
leased from telephone companies for the purpose of
connecting LANs and CANs to their larger MANs and WANs
 These companies wanted to route regular network traffic, telephone
calls (aka voice traffic), and the newly popular video conferencing traffic
on these ISDN connections, so they needed a network solution that
would ensure the real-time traffic (phone/video) would not suffer
dropped packets when large data files were being sent across the same
link
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Network Types: ATM

• ATM speeds vary with the type of transmission media used
 From 25 Mbps over typical network cabling, to 155 Mbps, 622 Mbps, or
almost 10000 Mbps (10 billion bits-per-second (Gbps)) over fibre
• It forms the basis for the network link you have with the phone
company if you subscribe to their DSL/ADSL Internet services
and/or the cable company if your use their Internet services
• As it’s designed to ensure real-time traffic never suffers when
competing with other traffic, it’s not the most practical or
efficient choice for general networks
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Network Types: Ethernet

• By far the most prevalent wired network type, Ethernet (also
known by its IEEE designation of 802.3) has a long history that
stretches back to the early 1970’s
 It was developed by Xerox and refined at Xerox PARC (yes, the same place
that developed the first mouse-driven computer interface that Steve Jobs
mimicked when building the Macintosh)
• Ethernet has been supported on almost every network media
type, from coaxial cables (“thicknet” and “thinnet”), to twisted
pair (the type you’re probably familiar with), to fiber optic cable,
and various wireless variations
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Network Types: Ethernet

• When it was introduced it ran at about 3 Mbps, but by the time
twisted pair cable was common it ran at 10 Mbps
• In the mid 1990’s, when better grades of twisted pair cable
became common and cost-effective, a revised Ethernet standard
called Fast Ethernet was released – it ran at 100 Mbps
 This was much faster than Token Ring, which by that time was already
being phased out due to the much lower cost of Ethernet hardware
 It was also the speed of each of the FDDI rings and, again, Ethernet
was much less expensive than FDDI hardware and cabling
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Network Types: Ethernet

• By the end of the 1990’s Gigabit Ethernet (1000 Mbps) was
standardized and it was being widely deployed in the early
2000’s – very early versions required fiber optic cabling, but
was quickly adapted to higher grade twisted pair cable
• This is the trend for almost all new speed updates for Ethernet –
they initially require fibre but eventually can use a copper-
based cable
 Copper cabling is generally preferred due to the relative fragility and
more challenging installation requirements of fibre optics
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Network Types: Ethernet

• Today it is not uncommon to find 10 Gbps Ethernet links in
homes and offices, particularly when connecting
infrastructure devices, such as distribution switches, to the
network core
 Switches with 10 Gbps ports for end-point nodes are less common,
largely due to the significant additional cost of SFP/SFP+ (Small Form-
factor Pluggable) modules that connect your chosen media type to the
port (although, for short runs you can use a copper-based
interconnection cable that doesn’t need separate SFP or SFP+ modules)

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Network Types: Ethernet

• Newer computer motherboards are now shipping with 2.5 Gbps
Ethernet ports
• 25 Gbps, 40 Gpbs, and 100 Gpbs Ethernet are now commonly
found within data centres and networking interconnection
points, although they are significantly more costly to provision
and support
• 200 Gbps and 400 Gbps Ethernet have been available for several
years but are still cost-prohibitive for most businesses
• 800 Gbps and Terabit Ethernet (1000 Gbps) are expected shortly
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Network Types: Ethernet

• Clearly, Ethernet is popular – but why?
• It strikes a very good balance between speed and cost
(including the cost of installation and upkeep)
• It’s also popular because it’s everywhere (or, is it everywhere
because it’s popular? Hmm…) – by that, I mean that it has
wide acceptance in the marketplace, that it supports all the
mainstream network protocols, and that the people that buy
networking hardware (that will be you, soon!) know it,
understand it, and like it (so, they will continue to choose it)
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Network Types: Ethernet

• If Ethernet is so well liked, why did it even have competition?
• It was due to two speed-related issues
• For instance, recall that Token Ring was offering 16 Mbps
performance when Ethernet was still at 10 Mbps
 These numbers represent raw “throughput” values (the speed at which
data moves through the network) in ideal conditions
• The larger issue was the tremendous decline in performance
when Ethernet networks were more than 60% utilization
 Technically, this issue still exists – so why don’t we care anymore?
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Network Types: Ethernet

• Let’s start by visualizing an Ethernet network circa early 1995:
Here is our network hub,
which we’ll attach to the
rest of the network

Can’t forget a spiffy new

network-connected
Oh, how fancy! Must
be a Manager’s
laser printer PC.

Let’s connect the

department’s computer
workstations 20
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Network Types: Ethernet

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Network Types: Ethernet

• Let’s assume this is a busy network: the printer in constant
use, the computers are
accessing large files all day
long, and the fancy computer
is reading and writing audio
and short, low-resolution
video files (hey, it’s 1995)
• Remember that they are all connected to the Ethernet hub,
which in turn is connected to the rest of the network
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Network Types: Ethernet

• This is a 10 Mbps network, so with all this data moving around
utilization will be high – here is where
we start to run into trouble!
• Although the hub is doing a
good job connecting all of
these nodes to the network, it
has one major drawback…
• A hub is designed to accept all the traffic coming in from any
port and repeat that traffic back out on all ports
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Network Types: Ethernet

• This behavior ensures that no matter which port the destination
network node is connected to,
that device will see it
• Have you ever tried to have
a conversation in a large room
with lots of other people in it,
each of whom is having a conversation with someone else?
• It’s hard to get a word in edgewise, right? Well, that’s our
problem here!
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Network Types: Ethernet

• When a network built like this starts to get busy, each node
has a harder and harder time finding
a quiet moment to try to
transmit its packets
• Eventually, the network stops
being effective
• This is the other speed-related problem with Ethernet that its
competition like Token Ring and FDDI tried to solve
• This leads to the question, “Why is this no longer a concern?”
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Network Types: Ethernet Let’s replace the

Most of the computers have been updated hub with a switch
• Let’s upgrade this network using some newer hardware:
• Great! Now we’re using a
switch, rather than a hub,
and our newer devices
are able to run at 1000 Mbps
(aka Gigabit Ethernet) and
from the look of the equipment here it’s probably late 2005
 You might notice the one computer that hasn’t yet been updated
(some people hate change) and we’re still using the same printer
(hey, it still prints, so why replace it?)
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Network Types: Ethernet

• The fact that we have mixed generations of Ethernet speeds here
is one of the big advantages
of Ethernet – newer, faster
versions are still
backwards compatible
with older, slower speeds
• The printer here is still using its 10 Mbps network interface
and the ten year old computer is still using its 100 Mbps interface
 In fact, that computer was using its 100 Mbps interface on the old
10 Mbps hub without any problems! 27
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Network Types: Ethernet

• This network will run much more smoothly, even with a vastly
increased demand for large
files, heavy web traffic, etc.
• Certainly, the faster 100
Mbps and Gigabit speeds
are part of the improvement
• Interestingly, the most significant part is probably the switch
• Switches work differently than hubs and they completely
eliminate the congestion problem we noted with hubs
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Let’s Talk Switches

• Switches look like hubs – lots of ports for nodes to connect to,
uplinks to other infrastructure devices (routers and/or other
switches)
 Unlike a hub, however, when a switch receives a packet it does not
immediately send it out on every port
 Instead, it checks to see if the device the packet is intended for is
connected to the switch and, if so, it transmits the packet only on the
port that device is connected to (of course, if the device is connected
to another infrastructure device the switch will send it to that device)
 Does this sound familiar? We briefly mentioned it a little while back…
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Let’s Talk Switches

• This vastly reduces the general chatter visible to all nodes on
the network, making it much easier for them to find quiet
moments in which to transmit their own packets
• There is still a certain amount of traffic that is sent to all nodes
(we call that broadcast traffic), but on most networks the
majority of traffic is unicast (that is, it is directed to a specific
node, rather than all nodes or a large group of nodes)
• Your home Internet router is likely to have a built-in switch –
take a few minutes to check it out when you get a chance
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Network Types: Ethernet

• Speaking of reducing unnecessary traffic, the Ethernet protocol
was extended to also include a feature that allows systems
administrators to create virtual LANs (VLANs) within our
physical network that we can use to further isolate different
types of traffic
• As you can see, Ethernet is a full-featured data link layer
protocol that meets the ongoing needs of modern networks
and continues to be developed and improved to meet
emerging requirements – no wonder it’s popular!
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Network Types: Wi-Fi

• Modern life would not be the same without Wi-Fi, right?
• Wi-Fi is the “marketing name” for the IEEE standard 802.11
• It uses radios and, therefore electromagnetic waves, to
connect end-point nodes to network infrastructure devices,
rather than cables
• I don’t want to spend a lot of time discussing the details of
Wi-Fi as students in the Networking programs get a whole
course on Wireless Networking so we can leave the details to
then, but it is certainly valuable to take a high-level look at it
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Network Types: Wi-Fi

• Using a variety of radio frequencies, Wi-Fi enables data
communications rates from 11 Mbps to multi-Gigabit speeds
 Generally speaking, the farther away a Wi-Fi end-point node is from
the infrastructure it is talking to, the slower the link speed
 Also, multi-Gigabit speeds are kind of a lie (much more on this will be
discussed in the Wireless Networking course)
• Wi-Fi requires end-point nodes to communicate through
wireless routers or access points
 Your Wi-Fi network at home is likely using a wireless router, whereas
businesses, schools and other institutions generally use access points
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Network Types: Wi-Fi

• Due to the nature of radio communications, Wi-Fi cannot detect
collisions, so instead it has mechanisms to avoid them
• As we touched on, Wi-Fi does have practical distance limitations
• Also, due to the lack of any shielding or other protections
offered by a wire, wireless communications is much more prone
to interference and packet loss
• These factors limit the real data-carrying capacity of Wi-Fi
 Having said that, current Wi-Fi implementations are more than fast
enough for business and personal use (such as streaming video)
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Network Types: Wi-Fi

• Wi-Fi was designed for maximum compatibility with Ethernet,
so they work very well together
• Many people think that the “wireless” aspect of wireless
communications means there are no wires (certainly, Dilbert’s
boss believes this)

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Network Types: Wi-Fi

• In fact, it’s only the connection to the end-point node that is
wireless – wireless routers, access points, and other Wi-Fi
infrastructure is generally connected to the LAN via Ethernet
 While it is possible to link these to the LAN wirelessly, for our
purposes I propose that we ignore that for now 
• The main benefit of Wi-Fi is obvious: it’s wireless nature allows
client devices to move freely around the coverage area without
having to worry about finding a nearby physical connection to
the network
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Comparing Ethernet and Wi-Fi

• In addition to being more prone to interference, Wi-Fi has a
number of other disadvantages vs. Ethernet
 Wi-Fi is slower (much slower than it reports to be)
 Ethernet is more secure – after all, using a radio is a lot like shouting
into a crowded room where everyone can hear you, so your traffic
can be easily intercepted (whether it can be understood, however, is
a different story)
 The additional infrastructure required for good Wi-Fi adds
significant cost and complexity to a network

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Comparison: Ethernet vs. Wi-Fi

Concern Wireless Network Wired Network
Freedom of movement, Users can access network from Users location limited by the need to
convenience anywhere within range use a cable and connect to a port
Speed of Sharing Files
Transfer speeds likely to be slower Transfer speeds are generally faster
and Data
Less workspace cabling, more
Cables Lots of cables and ports needed
infrastructure cabling
Connection speeds Usually slower than wired Usually faster than wireless
Less secure than wired (information
Security More secure than wireless
can sometimes be accessed)
A wireless network adds setup costs
(hardware and configuration effort)
Costs Lots of ongoing costs
and increases ongoing maintenance
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Ethernet and Wi-Fi: Typical Usage Cases

• In a modern office building it would be tempting to think that
we can simply rely on Wi-Fi to connect worker’s computers to
the LAN – indeed, some offices do just that!
• Of course, this approach saves businesses from having to run
Ethernet cabling to individual work areas, which can be
expensive
• Is this the right approach?

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Ethernet and Wi-Fi: Typical Usage Cases

• Wi-Fi still requires access points, which need to be cabled to
the LAN
• Workers with offices near sources of interference, such as the
kitchenette (those pesky microwaves!), will likely report
intermittent but highly disruptive network issues
• You must also consider the type of work being done on
computers and the impact of network quality on worker
productivity

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Ethernet and Wi-Fi: Typical Usage Cases

• Home users enjoy the mobility of Wi-Fi connections for phones
and laptops
• Wi-Fi is an excellent choice for workers who demands on the
network are intermittent and generally small (e.g. web surfing,
E-mail, and occasional file access) via mobile devices, laptops
and light-duty workstations
• Ethernet is more suitable for computers that require a fast,
reliable, full-time connection to the network

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Ethernet and Wi-Fi: Typical Usage Cases

• In environments with a lot of radio interference Wi-Fi will be
very slow, so Ethernet is generally preferred
• Applications that cannot tolerate slow data transfer rates or
delayed/dropped packets will have problems over Wi-Fi
• Servers are always connected via cables to the LAN
• High-performance workstations – particularly if they are
accessing large data files – are typically connected via
Ethernet
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What Are You Using?

• How many of you have a network at home?
• If so, is it just for mobile devices (phone, tablet, laptop)?
• Do you have nodes connected via Ethernet?
• Are you using an external switch, or just a Wi-Fi router?
• What are your experiences like? If you reflect on what we
talked about today, do you think you might make changes?

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End