| 1973 | 3 Mb/s | Xerox Ethernet | – | ? | Coax |
| 1976 | 10 Mb/s | Ethernet 1 | – | 500m | RG-11 coax |
| 1982 | 10 Mb/s | DIX Ethernet (Ethernet II) | – | 500m | RG-11 coax |
| 1985 | 10 Mb/s | 10Base5 (“Thicknet”) | 802.3 | 500m | RG-11 coax |
| 1985 | 10 Mb/s | 10Base2 (“Thinnet”) | 802.3 | 180m | RG-58 coax |
| 1989 | 10 Mb/s | 10BaseT | 802.3 | 100m | Cat 3 UTP copper |
| 1993 | 10 Mb/s | 10BaseF | 802.3 | 2km 25km |
MM fiber SM fiber |
| 1994 | 100 Mb/s | 100BaseTX (“100 meg”) | 802.3u | 100m | Cat 5 UTP copper |
| 1994 | 100 Mb/s | 100BaseFX | 802.3u | 2km | MM fiber SM fiber |
| 1998 | 1 Gb/s | 1000BaseSX | 802.3z | 260m 550m |
62.5-μm MM fiber 50-μm MM fiber |
| 1998 | 1 Gb/s | 1000BaseLX | 802.3z | 440m 550m 3km |
62.5-μm MM fiber 50-μm MM fiber SM fiber |
| 1998 | 1 Gb/s | 1000BaseCX | 802.3z | 25m | Twinax |
| 1999 | 1 Gb/s | 1000BaseT (“Gigabit”) | 802.3ab | 100m | Cat 5e, 6 UTP copper |
| 2002 | 10 Gb/s | 10GBase-SR 10GBase-LR 10GBase-ER 10GBase-ZR |
802.3ae 802.3aq |
300m 10km 40km 80km |
MM fiber SM fiber SM fiber SM fiber |
| 2006 | 10 Gb/s | 10GBase-T (“10 Gig”) | 802.3an | 100m | Cat 6a, 7, 7a UTP |
| 2009 | 40 Gb/s | 40GBase-CR4 40GBase-SR4 |
P802.3ba | 10m 100m |
UTP Copper MM fiber |
| 2009 | 100 Gb/s | 100GBase-CR10 100Gbase-SR10 |
P802.3ba | 10m 100m |
UTP Copper MM fiber |
| 2012 | 1 Tb/s | TBD | TBD | TBD | CWDM fiber |
| 2015 | 10 Tb/s | TBD | TBD | TBD | DWDM fiber |
MM = Multimode, SM = Single-mode, UTP = Unshielded twisted pair, CWDM = Coarse wavelength division multiplexing, DWDM = Dense wavelength division multiplexing.