Ethernet is the most widely accepted local area network in the industry. Ethernet is a true industry standard, governed by the IEEE 802.3 specifications relating to hardware design and communication protocol. This open standard ensures that no matter which vendor's equipment is used, inter-operability is guaranteed. 10M bits per second carried over a twisted pair cable terminated on each end with RJ-45 telephone style jacks. The other more increasingly encountered medium is 10Base-F or, 10M bits per second carried over a fiber optic cable for increased noise immunity.
Ethernet is also vendor neutral and, therefore, inexpensive to implement.
As Ethernet gains acceptance in industrial networking and motion control, two issues will arise. The first will pertain to which high-speed serial communication protocol is the fastest. The second will focus on Ethernet's nondeterministic nature and question whether it's suitable for information exchange requiring a known transmission time. Before drawing any conclusions, it is important to understand the difference between theoretical and actual data transmission speed, and which factors contribute to collisions on an Ethernet-based network. Playing a much larger role in the speed of data transmission are microprocessor computing power and the ability of the device to accept and process the information being passed to it over the high-speed bus.