hubs for more advanced switching hubs provided a viable upgrade path Mixing different speeds in a single network became possible with the arrival of Fast Ethernet Depending on cable grades, subsequent upgrading to Gigabit Ethernet or faster could be accomplished by replacing the network switches Although 10BASE-T is rarely used as a normal-operation signaling rate today, it is still in wide use with network interface controllers in Wake-on-LAN power-down mode and for special, low-power, low-bandwidth applications. 10BASE-T is still supported on most twisted-pair Ethernet ports with up to Gigabit Ethernet speed. Naming The common names for the standards derive from aspects of the physical media. The leading number (10 in 10BASE-T) refers to the transmission speed in Mbit/s. BASE denotes that baseband transmission is used. The T designates twisted-pair cable. Where there are several standards for the same transmission speed, they are distinguished by a letter or digit following the T, such as TX or T4, referring to the encoding method and number of lanes. Cabling Most Ethernet cables are wired "straight-through" (pin 1 to pin 1, pin 2 to pin 2, and so on). In some instances the "crossover" form (receive to transmit and transmit to receive) may still be required. Cables for Ethernet may be wired to either the T568A or T568B termination standards at both ends of the cable. Since these standards differ only in that they swap the positions of the two pairs used for transmitting and receiving, a cable with T568A wiring at one end and T568B wiring at the other results in a crossover cable. A 10BASE-T or 100BASE-TX host uses a connector wiring called medium dependent interfaces (MDI), transmitting on pins 1 and 2 and receiving on pins 3 and 6 to a network device. An infrastructure node (a hub or a switch) accordingly uses a connector wiring called MDI-X, transmitting on pins 3 and 6 and receiving on pins 1 and 2. These ports are connected using a straight-through cable so each transmitter talks to the receiver on the other end of the cable. Nodes can have two types of ports: MDI (uplink port) or MDI-X (regular port, 'X' for internal crossover). Hubs and switches have regular ports. Routers, servers and end hosts (e.g. personal computers) have uplink ports. When two nodes having the same type of ports need to be connected, a crossover cable may be required, especially for older equipment.