As shown in Figure 1.5, Ethernet LAN ports, even in the year 2000, made up
well over 90 percent of total LAN ports and were growing almost linearly, while the
port growth for Token Ring, minuscule as it was, was further declining. Token Bus
registered even less than Token Ring and did not even merit further consideration.
While the dominance of Ethernet has led market analysts to forgo such comparative
studies in the recent past, it is reasonable to assume that the small base of Token Ring
users will largely (or will in a short timeframe) inevitably migrate to Ethernet??”they
will simply have no other reasonable choice.27 FDDI??™s small base is in much the same
position as Token Ring??™s, although its use in some very niche applications may prolong
the inevitable. Ethernet has indeed come to dominate the LAN.
Figure 1.6 tracks Ethernet from its inception to its dominance. Roughly, it underwent
three stages28??”what can be termed as ???Beginnings,??? ???Growth and Challenges,??? and
26 A FDDI version using copper as the media was also introduced; this is referred to as CDDI.
27 Because FDDI cannot simply compete against the Ethernet??™s price and performance, which will only
further improve with time.
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