1. Introduction

This is a comprehensive International Standard for Local Area Networks (LANs) employing CSMA/CD as the access method. This International Standard is intended to encompass several media types and techniques for signal rates from 1 Mb/s to 1000 Mb/s. This edition of the standard provides the necessary specifications for the following families of systems: a 1 Mb/s baseband system, 10 Mb/s baseband and broadband systems, a 100 Mb/s baseband system, and a 1000 Mb/s base band system.
In addition, it specifies a method for linearly incrementing a system.s data rate by aggregating multiple physical links of the same speed into one logical link.