History
With wide, metro and local area networks using various forms of Ethernet, the goal was to eliminate non-native transport such as Ethernet over Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) from access networks. One early effort was the EtherLoop technology invented at Nortel Networks in 1996, and then spun off into the company Elastic Networks in 1998. Its principal inventor was Jack Terry. The hope was to combine the packet-based nature of Ethernet with the ability of Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) technology to work over existing telephone access wires. The name comes from local loop, which traditionally describes the wires from a telephone company office to a subscriber. The protocol was half-duplex with control from the provider side of the loop. It adapted to line conditions with a peak of 10 Mbit/s advertised, but 4-6 Mbit/s more typical, at a distance of about 12,000 feet (3,700 m). Symbol rates were 1 Mbaud or 1.67 Mbaud, with 2, 4, or 6 bits per symbol. The EtherLoop product name was registered as a trademark in the US and Canada. The EtherLoop technology was eventually purchased by Paradyne Networks in 2002, which was in turn purchased by Zhone Technologies in 2005.
Another effort was the concept promoted by Michael Silverton of using Ethernet variants that used fiber optic communication to residential as well as business customers. This was an example of what has become known as fiber to the home (FTTH). The Fiberhood Networks company provided this service from 1999 to 2001.
Some early products around 2000 were marketed as 10BaseS by Infineon Technologies, although they did not technically use baseband signalling, but rather passband as in Very high data rate Digital Subscriber Line (VDSL) technology. A patent was filed in 1997 by Peleg Shimon, Porat Boaz, Noam Alroy, Rubinstain Avinoam and Sfadya Yackow. Long Reach Ethernet was the product name used by Cisco Systems starting in 2001. It supported modes of 5 Mbit/s, 10 Mbit/s and 15 Mbit/s depending on distance.
In October 2000 Howard Frazier issued a call for interest on "Ethernet in the Last Mile". At the November 2000 meeting, IEEE 802.3 created the "Ethernet in the First Mile" study group, and on July 16, 2001 the 802.3ah working group. In parallel participating vendors formed the Ethernet in the First Mile Alliance (EFMA) in December 2001 to promote Ethernet subscriber access technology and support the IEEE standard efforts. At an early meeting, the EtherLoop technology was called 100BASE-CU and another technology called EoVDSL for Ethernet over VDSL.
The working group's EFM standard was approved on June 24, 2004 and published on September 7, 2004 as IEEE 802.3ah-2004. In 2005 it was included into the base IEEE 802.3 standard. In 2005, the EFMA was absorbed by the Metro Ethernet Forum.
In early 2006, work began on an even higher-speed 10 Gigabit/second Ethernet Passive optical network (XEPON or 10G-EPON) standard, ratified in 2009 as IEEE 802.3av.
In November 2011, IEEE 802.3 began work on EPON Protocol over Coax (EPoC).
Read more about this topic: Ethernet In The First Mile
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“We aspire to be something more than stupid and timid chattels, pretending to read history and our Bibles, but desecrating every house and every day we breathe in.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The history of progress is written in the blood of men and women who have dared to espouse an unpopular cause, as, for instance, the black man’s right to his body, or woman’s right to her soul.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)