Ethernet is a family of specifications that governs a few different things: It covers all the different wiring specifications (10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX, 1000BASE-T, etc…).
It describes how to send bits (1s and 0s) across each wire. It also determines how to interpret those bits into meaningful frames. Initially, this article was meant to just cover the basic differences and use-cases for Crossover cables and Straight-through cables.
But, the topic of Ethernet Wiring deserves a bit more depth.
We’ll start off with a disambiguation of all the terminology that gets thrown around when discussing physical cabling, then answer a couple basic questions:
Why do we need crossover cables vs straight-through? What exactly is Twisted Pair? How is a single bit transmitted across the wire? Finally, we’ll wrap things up with a look at the standard for Gigabit Ethernet: