 are manufactured by any number of respectable, well-known players. CSMA/CD (for all intents and purposes, Ethernet) is far and away the most widely deployed LAN technology because it is simple, inexpensive, and capable of offering very high bandwidth to any mar- ketplace, including residential. I am writing this in my home office on a PC that is connected to a 100 Mbps Ethernet LAN that ties together three PCs and a couple of printers, and the total cost of the network- including the router and firewall that protects the machines from intru- sion due to the always-on connection through the cable modem-was less than $200. Most businesses use Ethernet today because most businesses have normal traffic flows-office automation traffic and the like. For busi- nesses that experience constant, bandwidth-intensive traffic such as that found in engineering firms, architectural enterprises or businesses with other graphics-heavy traffic, token ring may be a better choice, although there are those who will argue. Businesses that already have a large installed base of IBM hardware may also be good candidates for token ring, since it integrates well (for obvious reasons) into IBM environ- ments. Even still, Ethernet is ruling the roost. Downloaded from Digital Engineering Library @ McGraw-Hill (www.digitalengineeringlibrary.com) Copyright © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Any use is subject to the Terms of Use as given at the website. Premises Technologies Premises Technologies Content It would be irresponsible of me to write a book like this without at least mentioning the content that rides on today's networks. The section that follows explores multimedia and all its many flavors. Multimedia is the primary driving force for bandwidth today; an understanding of what it is and where it is going is important. Besides, it's fascinating stuff. The World of Multimedia In the last decade a revolution has taken place in visual applications. Starting with simple, still image-based applications such as gray-scale