Ethernet is considered a contention-based or first come, first served access method. This will allow all nodes on a network to share the same link's bandwidth. It is the most popular and widely used type of networking in the world today. I know you may be thinking: wait a minute, shared media? Doesn't that slow everything down? The great thing about Ethernet is that you have options for configurations, scalability, and inter-operability, and it is also quite simple to implement.
Now, Ethernet takes advantage of both the data link and physical link layers of the OSI model, which means we will be gathering information from both of those layers, IP addresses, and the MAC address. So, we will need to effectively and vigilantly maintain an Ethernet network.
