100Base-T/IEEE 802.12/packet switching

Three LAN technologies look set to satisfy the ever-increasing demand for LAN bandwidth. Two of these technologies are 100 Mb/s shared-medium LANs: 100Base-T (aka IEEE 802.3 Fast Ethernet) and IEEE 802.12 (aka 100VG-AnyLAN or 100VG). The third technology is packet switching, which is really an extension of existing LAN bridge technology, but offers excellent performance gains at very low cost. The authors describe the three technologies and provide a comparison between the two 100 Mb/s LANs. Also presented are results that compare the measured performance of 100 Mb/s shared-medium LANs with switched LANs.