Infonetics Research, a market research company that specializes in technology, has released a study entitled "User Pans for High Performance LANs 2000," which reports that Fast Ethernet (100 Mbps) and Gigabit Ethernet (1,000 Mbps) are becoming ubiquitous, with Cat 5 UTP (unshielded twisted pair) wire being used more widely than fiber-optic cabling. Although 100 Mbps is the most common bandwidth to the desktop, and 1,000 Mbps is the most common for LAN backbones, large organizations which are highly technology-dependent, sometimes take Gigabit Ethernet all the way to the desktop.
Among the other developments reported by Infonetics is the replacement of routers by Layer-3 switches. Layer-3 is the network layer of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model. These switches can accommodate many of the network traffic routing functions of multiprotocol routers, but at a fraction of the cost. Libraries upgrading to Fast Ethernet or Gigabit Ethernet should investigate Layer-3 switches as an alternative to routers.
