As computers have taken over communications, and with that the Internet, connecting them has taken over closets, crawl spaces, and tunnels. Until a few months ago, the only way to get a fast and reliable connection between two computers was via wire or a million-dollar NASA satellite.
With a line of switches aimed at large enterprises, CNet Technology has jumped on the Ethernet bandwidth wagon. The company’s switch offerings boast all of the functionality of high-end switches at a substantially lower cost.
The protocol that has emerged over this communication is Ethernet. Ethernet basically travels across different types of media, from fiber-optic cable to enlarged phone cable. As the distance between computers (and the number of them) has grown, the length, number, and reliability of the cable has also increased. And along with the cable, the hardware that manages the cables has grown.
For many office buildings, it’s now almost unheard of not to have a large network switch somewhere in the building, if not somewhere on each floor. Such switches typically have 24 or 32 ports but are seldom any larger. They are about the size of the first eight port hubs ever made thanks to increases in the technology that deals with their internal structure.
In an attempt to meet this burgeoning need, CNet Technology has jumped on the Ethernet bandwidth wagon with its large corporate switches. The company hopes that this focus will enable it to take a chunk of market share away from leading switch vendors, such as Cisco and Linksys.