Ethernet in the First Mile
For engineers struggling with the IEEE standard 802.3, this book annotates and explains the dense language of the standard document, taking particular care how to explain how the EFM dovetails with other standards.
TABLE OF CONTENTS Ethernet in the First Mile
Chapter 1: Introduction
"Standards and sausages should not be watched being made..."
-ANONYMOUS
Introduction to Standards Development
NOTE TO THE READER: If you are only interested in the technical aspects of Ethernet in the First Mile (EFM), feel free to skip this section. If you care about the "why" and the "how" of this standard and others, however, you may find this section useful.
The Purpose of Standardization
The solution described in a technical standard is seldom the only solution to the problem it addresses. In fact, it often is not even the best solution to the problem (complex engineering problems tend not to have a "best" solution, but only a least inconvenient trade-off). All standards do is identify a single point in the solution space of the problem, with the goal of establishing a benchmark for interchangability and interoperability. This is all but true in the case of the EFM standard.
Standards differ from implementers' guides and books like this one in that they only try to specify as little as possible to reach this goal, thus leaving room for innovation and differentiation in implementation. As a result, standards for communication systems-including EFM-will often specify the transmitter in great detail, while being much less strict about the receiver; specifying both to the same extent would be redundant, could introduce unintended contradictions, and would unnecessarily limit the implementer's options. A lesser degree of detail in the specification gives the implementer the freedom to build a receiver that operates correctly even when dealing...
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