# List of early Ethernet standards

The early generation of Ethernet standards had a maximum throughput of 10 Mbit/s. In 10BASE-X, the 10 represents its maximum throughput of 10 Mbit/s, BASE indicates its use of baseband transmission, and X indicates the type of medium used. Classic Ethernet includes coax, twisted pair and optical variants. The first Ethernet standard was published in 1983 and classic Ethernet operating at 10 Mbit/s was the dominant form of Ethernet until the first standard for Fast Ethernet was approved in 1995.

## Varieties

| Name | Standard | Status | Media | Connector | Transceiver Module | Reach in m | # Media (⇆) | # Lambdas (→) | # Lanes (→) | Notes |
| Classic coaxial Ethernet - (Data rate: 10 Mbit/s - Line code: PE - Line rate: 20 MBd - Full-Duplex / Half-Duplex) |||||||||||
| 10BASE5 Thick Ethernet DIX Standard | 802.3-1983 (CL8) | obsolete 09/2003 | Coax RG-8 (50 Ω) | AUI, N, Vampire tap | MAU | 500 | 1 | N/A | 1 | LAN; original standard; electrical bus topology with collision detection; uses a single coaxial cable into which you literally tap a connection by drilling into the cable to connect to the core and screen. |
| 10BASE2 Thin Ethernet ThinNet Cheapernet | 802.3a-1988 (CL10) | obsolete 09/2011 | Coax RG-58 (50 Ω) | BNC, EAD/TAE-E | MAU | 185 | 1 | N/A | 1 | LAN; dominant standard from the mid to late 1980s; electrical bus topology with collision detection; coaxial cable connects machines together, each machine using a T-connector to connect to its NIC. Requires terminators at each end. |
| Classic fibre Ethernet - (Data rate: 10 Mbit/s - Line code: PE - Line rate: 20 MBd - Full-Duplex / Half-Duplex) |||||||||||
| FOIRL | 802.3d-1987 (CL9.9) | superseded | Fibre 850 nm | ST | MAU | OF: 1k | 2 | 1 | 1 | original standard for Ethernet over fiber; uses any optical fiber with up to 4 dB/km attenuation and at least 150 MHz bandwidth; superseded by 10BASE-FL |
| 10BASE-FL | 802.3j-1993 (CL15/18) | largely obsolete | Fibre 850 nm | ST | MAU | FDDI: 2k | 2 | 1 | 1 | Nodes |
| 10BASE-FB | 802.3j-1993 (CL15/17) | largely obsolete | Fibre 850 nm | ST | MAU | FDDI: 2k | 2 | 1 | 1 | synchronous inter-repeater connections |
| 10BASE-FP | 802.3j-1993 (CL15/16) | obsolete | Fibre 850 nm | ST | MAU | FDDI: 1k | 2 | 1 | 1 | passive, repeaterless star network; Market Failure, never implemented |

## Fibre-based standards (10BASE-F)

10BASE-F, or sometimes 10BASE-FX, is a generic term for the family of 10 Mbit/s Ethernet standards using fiber-optic cable. In 10BASE-F, the 10 represents a maximum throughput of 10 Mbit/s, BASE indicates its use of baseband transmission, and F indicates that it relies on a medium of fiber-optic cable. The technical standard requires two strands of 62.5/125 μm multimode fiber. One strand is used for data transmission while the other is used for reception, making 10BASE-F a full-duplex technology. There are three different variants of 10BASE-F: 10BASE-FL, 10BASE-FB and 10BASE-FP. Of these only 10BASE-FL experienced widespread use. With the introduction of later standards 10 Mbit/s technology has been largely replaced by faster Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet and 100 Gigabit Ethernet standards.

### FOIRL

Fiber-optic inter-repeater link (FOIRL) is a specification of Ethernet over optical fiber. It was specially designed as a back-to-back transport between repeater hubs to decrease latency and collision detection time, thus increasing the possible network radius. It was replaced by 10BASE-FL.

### 10BASE-FL

10BASE-FL is the most commonly used 10BASE-F specification of Ethernet over optical fiber. In 10BASE-FL, FL stands for fiber optic link. It replaces the original fiber-optic inter-repeater link (FOIRL) specification, but retains compatibility with FOIRL-based equipment. When mixed with FOIRL equipment, the maximum segment length is limited to FOIRL's 1000 meters.

### 10BASE-FB

The 10BASE-FB is a network segment used to bridge Ethernet hubs. Here FB abbreviates FiberBackbone. Due to the synchronous operation of 10BASE-FB, delays normally associated with Ethernet repeaters are reduced, thus allowing segment distances to be extended without compromising the collision detection mechanism. The maximum allowable segment length for 10BASE-FB is 2000 meters. This media system allowed multiple half-duplex Ethernet signal repeaters to be linked in series, exceeding the limit on the total number of repeaters that could be used in a given 10 Mbit/s Ethernet system. 10BASE-FB links were attached to synchronous signaling repeater hubs and used to link the hubs together in a half-duplex repeated backbone system that could span longer distances.

### 10BASE-FP

In 10BASE-FP, FP denotes fibre passive. This variant calls for a non-powered optical signal coupler capable of linking up to 33 devices, with each segment being up to 500 m in length. This formed a star network centered on the signal coupler. A LAN implementing this standard was applied as a branch LAN to construct an all-optical fiber hierarchical integrated LAN with a high-speed LAN (FDDI, etc.) as the backbone.