4 shows, it was the
solution employed by nearly the entire addressable market.
This overwhelming adoption of Ethernet in the enterprise LAN was largely due to
the reasonable superiority of a combination of factors??”notably simplicity and continual
improvements in price and features, rather than a substantial competitive advantage in
any one facet. It is instructive to understand how Ethernet ascended to this dominant
position in the LAN. Dr. Metcalfe identified [11] the main enablers for Ethernet??™s dominance
in the LAN and these are briefly discussed next.
Continual Market-driven Innovation As noted in the previous section, Ethernet did
not initially have any overwhelming technical advantages over the other LAN technologies
but that status quo changed quickly as higher speeds (from 2.94M in 1973 to 10G
currently), new media (copper, coax, fiber, and even wireless), and increased functionality
(such as switching, priority, and so on) were incorporated into Ethernet. With every
new generation, the speed increased tenfold (10M to 100M to 1000M to 10000M), a
phenomenon that was not (and has not been) replicated with any other LAN technology.
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