Editing Ethernet over twisted pair (section)

== History ==
The first two early designs of twisted-pair networking were [[StarLAN]], standardized by the [[IEEE Standards Association]] as [[IEEE 802.3]]e in 1986, at one megabit per second,<ref name="urs" /> and [[LattisNet]], developed in January 1987, at 10 megabit per second.<ref name="syn" /><ref name="Wise" /> Both were developed before the 10BASE-T standard (published in 1990 as IEEE 802.3i) and used different signaling, so they were not directly compatible with it.<ref name="Network Maintenance" />

In 1988, AT&T released StarLAN&nbsp;10, named for working at {{nowrap|10 Mbit/s}}.<ref>{{cite book |title= StarLAN Technology Report, 4th Edition |year= 1991 |publisher= Architecture Technology Corporation |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=wvsgBQAAQBAJ |isbn= 9781483285054 }}</ref> The StarLAN&nbsp;10 signaling was used as the basis of 10BASE-T, with the addition of ''link beat'' to quickly indicate connection status.{{efn|By switching link beat on or off, a number of network interface cards at the time could work with either StarLAN 10 or 10BASE-T.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Ohland|first1=Louis|title=3Com 3C523|url=http://www.walshcomptech.com/ohlandl/NIC/3com_523.html|website=Walsh Computer Technology|access-date=1 April 2015}}</ref>}}

Using twisted-pair cabling in a [[star topology]] addressed several weaknesses of the previous Ethernet standards:<!--I'm not sure this is a History section topic, but it does examine the transition to twisted pair, so I will leave it here until a better place is found, or someone makes a move to strike it which could happen since it is uncited and smells like original research.-->
* Twisted-pair cables were already in use for telephone service and were already present in many office buildings, lowering the overall cost of deployment.
* The centralized star topology was also already often in use for telephone service cabling, as opposed to the [[bus topology]] required by earlier Ethernet standards.
* Using point-to-point links was less prone to failure and greatly simplified troubleshooting compared to a shared bus .
* Exchanging cheap [[repeater hub]]s for more advanced [[switching hub]]s provided a viable upgrade path.
* Mixing different speeds in a single network became possible with the arrival of [[Fast Ethernet]].
* Depending on [[Twisted pair#Types|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 controller]]s 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.