Ethernet

Ethernet is a computer networking protocol.

In this protocol, all networked computers are connected together by a wire or channel. (The channel is often a type of radio link called "Wi-Fi").

The clever thing about Ethernet is that is can handle the problem of two computers trying to talk at exactly the same time. The fancy name for this is "Collision Handling".

The way it works is that the protocol can 'sense' a collision and so it tells one of the computers to stop talking for a bit. Once a little time has passed, this computer has another go, and the chances are it will be able to get through.

As you can imagine, if the network is very busy, then more and more 'collisions' happen and so the network seems to slow down as far as your computer is concerned.

Another important fact about Ethernet is that it makes use of 'packets' of data. This means that the Ethernet protocol will "slice and dice" a message into a number packets and send each one off into the network.

2020-10