Table Of ContentEthernet in the First Mile
...Access for Everyone
Wael William Diab
Howard M. Frazier
Published by
Standards Information Network
IEEE Press
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Diab, Wael William, 1976-
Ethernet in the first mile : access for everyone / Wael William Diab, Howard Frazier.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7381-4838-5
1 .Ethernet (Local area network system) I. Frazier, Howard, (Howard M) ,1961-11.
Title.
TK5105.8.E83D53 2006
004.6'8-dc22
2005055243
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Linda Sibilia, Cover Designer
n Ethernet in the First Mile
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Ethernet in the First Mile m
Dedication
To my father, mother and sister:
My father who taught me the value of knowledge and its pursuit, my mother who taught me how to
love and appreciate others around me, and to my sister who constantly reminds me of how exciting it
is to be younger.
- Wael William Diab
To my family.
- Howard M. Frazier
IV Ethernet in the First Mile
Acknowledgement
The IEEE 802.3 standard for Ethernet is the product of many great minds. Over the years, hundreds of
people have contributed to the standard, and we are grateful to have had the opportunity to work with
most of them. There is no doubt that Ethernet will continue to evolve and grow far into the future, and
it is a good thing for all of us that the fate of Ethernet is in the hands of such capable individuals.
IEEE Std 802.3ah-2004 for Ethernet in the First mile was crafted by an exceptional group of task force
officers, task force members and IEEE staff editors, all of whom deserve thanks and praise for their
efforts.
We also offer thanks to Kevin Q Daines, Vipul Bhatt, and the anonymous reviewers who helped us
refine our book. Any errors that may remain in the text are our fault, not theirs.
We would also like to take this opportunity to acknowledge our immediate families for their support,
love and patience throughout the writing of this book, without which we would not have been able to
undertake this project. Author Diab would also like to acknowledge his Aunt Helen and Uncle Hanna
in addition to his immediate family.
Lastly, we offer our thanks to the IEEE Standards Information Network/IEEE Press, with heartfelt
thanks to our editor, Jennifer McClain Longman.
Wael William Diab
Howard M. Frazier
Ethernet in the First Mile v
Authors
Wael William Diab has over ten years experience in defining,
architecting, and building next generation networking products. He has
been a key member of the industry, as well as in the standards community
setting strategy for emerging networking technologies. He is currently with
Broadcom as Director of Marketing looking at next generation products for
the Networking Infrastructure Group. Prior to Broadcom, he worked at
Cisco Systems in various capacities ranging in scope from technical and
architectural leadership to business leadership, focused on next generation
networking products and technologies.
Mr. Diab has been responsible for representing Cisco and Broadcom at
industry forums like the IEEE and others. He has given a number of
industry talks and keynote addresses on Ethernet in the First Mile (IEEE
802.3ah), access technologies, and emerging Ethernet technologies. He is
an active member and contributor within the IEEE standards community.
During the Ethernet in the First Mile (EFM) project, he was elected Chief
Optics Editor in 2001 and was later elected and promoted to the position of
Chief Editor for the entire IEEE 802.3ah standard where he oversaw all of EFM's technical teams including
optics, copper (DSL), OAM, and P2MP (EPON). Mr. Diab has been a key contributor on previous Ethernet
projects such as IEEE 802.3af (Power over Ethernet) and 802.3ae (10 Gigabit Ethernet). He was also a key
member of the team at Cisco that delivered the first Gigabit Ethernet and Power over Ethernet products to the
industry.
Today, Mr. Diab serves as Secretary of IEEE 802.3 (Ethernet) and is an Officer in Ethernet's Executive
Committee overseeing on organization of 300+ members as well as all current projects and Ethernet standards.
He has served on the Board of Directors for the Ethernet in the First Mile Alliance, as well as vice-chairman for
the Marketing (MS AD) group of the Fiber to the Home (FTTH) Council and several program committees
focused on networking and first mile activities. Mr. Diab has also been a contributing author on Ethernet. He is a
strong advocate of academic research and innovation focused on the networking space. At Cisco he served as a
technology research Director in addition to his regular duties and was a member of both Cisco's University
Research Board as well as Cisco's Patent Committee. In the area of academic research, he has championed
several projects including an optical PON project with UNH and a high speed copper PHY project with PDG
(now The Technology Collaborative, TTC).
Mr. Diab holds BS and MS degrees in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, a BA degree in
Economics from Stanford, and an MBA with honors from the Wharton School of Business. He has developed
over twelve patents in the networking space.
v; Ethernet in the First Mile
Howard M. Frazier is an independent consultant on matters relating
to networking standards and technology. He was the founder and Chief
Technical Officer of Dominet Systems, Inc., a Silicon Valley startup
building Ethernet in the First Mile systems for broadband subscriber access
networks.
Previously, Mr. Frazier was a Distinguished Engineer at Cisco Systems. He
is one of the co-inventors of Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet, and 10
Gigabit Ethernet, as well as the Chairman of the IEEE 802.3 Task Forces
that wrote the standards for Fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet. He also
served a term as the Recording Secretary of the IEEE 802 LAN/MAN
Standards Committee. Among other accomplishments in high-speed
networking, he developed the world's first 10/100BASE-T network
interface card in 1993 while working at Sun Microsystems. Mr. Frazier
served as the Chairman of the IEEE 802.3ah Ethernet in the First Mile Task
Force, is a former Chairman of the IEEE Standards Association's Review
Committee (RevCom), and was the Vice Chairman of the IEEE-SA
Standards Board. He is a graduate of Carnegie-Mellon University.
Ethernet in the First Mile vn
Foreword
If Ethernet could talk it would say, like Samuel Clemens, "Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated".
In the more than thirty years since Ethernet was invented, it has survived more attacks, with greater ferocity,
from a larger number of wanna-be competitors, than any other computer network. Each time, the standard
emerges stronger, more versatile, and better able to survive in a world otherwise marked by ever-increasing
technological turmoil. Ethernet has endured and overcome Token bus, Token Ring, VG-ANYLan, FDDI, Fibre
Channel, ATM-to-the-desktop, and now, with these latest first-mile extensions, ATM-to-the-home, as the
network of choice for end-user interconnection.
Each battle brings a fresh challenge. And each time, the IEEE 802.3 standards-setting body, the folks responsible
for maintaining and improving the Ethernet standard, rise over and above that challenge to provide a new level of
service, at a lower level of cost, to an ever-broader spectrum of users.
Three key factors facilitate Ethernet's continued dominance in the field of computer networking.
1) The people in the committee
2) The secret formula they follow
3) The speed with which they act
I cannot say enough about the hardworking folks in the Ethernet committee that write these standards. In
particular, I should like to thank my good friends Howard Frazier, Bob Grow, Jonathan Thatcher, and Geoff
Thompson for their long-term commitment to the success of Ethernet as a standard, and for building the support
organization that Ethernet enjoys today. Hundreds of other people, obviously, participate in the technical work,
the writing, the testing, the product development and the marketing involved in the creation of a major
international standard, but I have singled out these four as being, primarily, responsible for creating and
maintaining the secret formula from which Ethernet derives its unique success.
Mr. Thompson first articulated to me the secret formula upon my election in November of 1994 as chief technical
editor of 802.3u (Fast Ethernet). I cite this formula as an explanation of Ethernet's success to date, and as a guide
to anyone who wishes to duplicate the success of the Ethernet committee (in another field).
First, one precipitates a small handful of technical experts from among the hundreds of participants at meetings.
Ever try to get three engineers to agree on anything? How about 450? Believe me, nothing technically productive
happens in a committee meeting. Such meetings are not places where technical problems are solved. They are,
quite simply, either roadblocks, or chances to sweep everyone along on a pre-determined, safe pathway. The
experts plan in advance a safe pathway around, over, or through any technical obstacles that arise.
Between meetings, the experts fly all over the country, coordinating engineers at multiple companies, helping
them prepare solution ideas, experimental results, and conclusions. At the next committee fracas, the committee
hears a review of whatever "problem" arose at the last meeting, and then at least two, and possibly more,
coordinated reports from independent laboratories converging on a common, shared solution. This is the military
Vili Ethernet in the First Mile
equivalent of "overwhelming force". Faced with that sort of powerful technical presentation most committee
members are happy to vote for the coordinated solution.
Given this approach, Ethernet committees can strike hard, and strike fast, overtaking in a short period of time
competing standards that have in some cases been under development for ten, twenty years or more.
The speed of operation benefits greatly from the independent marketing alliance associated with each Ethernet
standard. The alliance includes most companies supporting the development of the new standard. These
companies promote the use of the standard, keep the world appraised of its progress, and keep their own
engineers focused squarely on the task at hand: writing a good standard that benefits everyone, and getting it
done quickly. Without this immediate pressure from a high-level marketing organization, a standard wanders,
like Moses in the desert, for forty years without reaching a conclusion.
The last hallmark of a good standards-setting body is its willingness to embrace whole sections of other people's
standards, thereby saving years of development agony. Successful use of another standard requires that you adopt
certain key parts, but intentionally change others in annoying little ways, forcing everyone to start over from
scratch. That places all the members an even footing, and that is a compromise anybody can vote for.
So far I have not mentioned the technology. I won't, because that is the subject of this outstanding book by
Wael Diab and Howard Frazier, and because the technology changes—Ethernet adapts. What stays the same is
that Ethernet settles controversy; it does not create it. Ethernet crystallizes the computer industry around a
common set of principles and formats that, by their nature, create huge market opportunities for everyone. That is
what matters, and that is why Ethernet in the First Mile holds such great promise.
Welcome to the world of Ethernet in the First Mile.
Howard Johnson
Chief Technical Editor, IEEE 802.3u Fast Ethernet and IEEE 802.3z Gigabit Ethernet, Author of High-Speed
Digital Design: A Handbook of Black Magic, the Signal Integrity columnist for EDN Magazine, and a frequent
guest lecturer at Oxford University, http://www.sigcon.com.
Ethernet in the First Mile IX
Preface
It is virtually impossible today to buy or set up a computer without hearing the word Ethernet—the hallmark of
high-speed, easy-to-use computer communication, which has become a household name. It is also virtually
impossible to avoid answering the question of 'what broadband technology best suits my needs?' Where
Ethernet had provided consumers with scalable and easy-to-use networking solutions over the past two decades,
the broadband landscape has been confusing and cryptic for the consumer and equally as confusing and
unprofitable for the providers.
On September 7, 2004, the Ethernet in the First Mile (EFM) standard, formally known as IEEE Std 802.3ah™-
2004, was published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE) and made available to
the world. The publication of the standard marked the culmination of four years of effort by industry leaders and
innovators to address the broadband subscriber access network market and its challenges. More importantly, the
publication of EFM introduced a suite of native Ethernet broadband technology, which, as a set, marked yet
another successful extension of Ethernet into a new market and definitively answered the question of 'what
broadband technology best suits my needs' with a set of Ethernet technologies that mirrored the traditional
Ethernet technologies in price, simplicity, and profitability.
IEEE Std 802.3ah-2004 is an outstanding resource for someone who wants to build equipment that is compatible
with the EFM standard. This book brings the standard to life by explaining the basic principles behind the
standard, presenting the tradeoffs that led to the standardization of the specific technologies, and providing a
guide to help you navigate through the formal prose.
We wrote this text as two individuals who were passionate in their efforts to raise the bar on the broadband
services that every individual should enjoy. Together, we led the EFM project and we present to you the
evolution of the standard along with our perspective on the various technologies.
Our book starts by introducing the Ethernet standards committee, its long and successful history, its language and
nomenclature, along with its structure and decision-making process. We then re-enact the business and
technology evolution that set the stage for a successful launch of EFM by introducing our readers to the
preceding and competing technologies that failed to capture the hearts of the consumer and the backing of the
industry leaders.
Next we introduce the EFM standard by giving an overview of its massive scope and various technology tracks,
after which we dive into each technology devoting chapters that explain the technical, economic, and marketing
aspects of the choices that were made in the EFM task force and written into IEEE Std 802.3ah-2004.
Throughout the text, we complement the technology discussions with practical issues such as implementation
tradeoffs, design strategies, network topologies, interoperability and testing. All of which are things that
providers, consumers, builders, and suppliers of EFM should be acutely aware of.
We also emphasize a core theme throughout the text, which is the distinct ability of EFM to carry information in
the broadband domain using native Ethernet frames. Moreover, we interlace the technology discussions with
business cases and considerations associated with deploying EFM. We present the insights of the leading
x Ethernet in the First Mile
