100Base-FX Ethernet Media Standard

100Base-FX is an Ethernet media standard for Ethernet over fiber optic cables, instead of twisted pair cables. FastEthernet is defined as IEEE 802.3u standard.

Early Ethernet computer networks used copper Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP) cabling. But Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP) cabling can carry traffic only at small distance between client computer and the network switch (100 meters). This 100-meter distance limitation is an issue for networks covering big area, like hospitals and universities. To overcome this distance limitation issue, fiber based Ethernet standards evolved. 100Base-FX is a fiber-based Ethernet standard. Here FX shows that optical fiber based cables are used, instead for copper twisted pair cables. 100Base-FX can carry data to a maximum distance of 2000m (two kilometers) between network switch and client computer.

The "100" in 100Base-FX is used to mention the transmission speed of 100 Mbps. The "Base" is used to denote baseband signalling. The letter "F" is used to identify that the cabling used is fiber-optic cable.

Main charecteristcs of 100Base-FX fiber FastEthernet are listed below.

• Operating speed of 100Base-FX is 100 Mbps.
• Similar to other Ethernet standards, 100Base-FX uses baseband signals to transfer data.
• 100Base-FX supports a maximum distance 2000 meters (two kilometers) between the network switch and the client computer.
• 100BaseFX standard uses the multimode fiber-optic cabling and SC or ST connectors.

These days, almost all network devices are Gigabit Ethernet capable. 100 Mbps FastEthernet network devices had replaced by Gigabit Ethernet (1 Gbps, that is 1,000,000,000 bits per second) or 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10 Gbps, that is 10,000,000,000 bits per second).

Feed your brain that Mbps is used to represent megabits per second, not megabytes per second. MB/sec is used to represent megabytes per second.