kjm@adpplz.UUCP (Ken Meyer) (05/23/91)
I'm wrestling with a decision regarding what type of devices to use to connect Ethernet LANs across fiber optics. I would appreciate getting mail back from anyone who has experience or understanding of whether to go with the IEEE FOIRL standard based devices, or 10 base F type devices. My company is planning on building alot of LANS and I want to have the best performance characteristics while being able to go to as many vendors as possible for equipment. This is the situation with 10 base F vs. FOIRL as I understand it: 10 base F is pending approval with IEEE. It could become a standard as early as June of this year. 10 base F is a synchronous protocol that has the advantage of offering less delay for packets processed by a repeater because there is not a need for pre-amble regeneration. This allows for cascading more 10 base F repeaters than with FOIRL devices. (so I'm told) Also having clock pulses during idle time may be an advantage because network faults can be idenntified and possibly rerouted before any data is actually lost. Vendor inter-operability is likely (Is this true? Anybody had any experience with multi-vendor 10 base T networks, as in one vendor's transceiver talking to another vendor's repeater?) FOIRL is an IEEE standard covered under section 9.9 of the 802.3 standard since December of '87. FOIRL is more likely to have vendor inter- operability partially because it is a standard that been out and accepted for some time and that's intent of the standard. (Again, can anyone relay any experience with FOIRL inter-operability?) There also seem to be more of the bigger vendors adopting FOIRL. This makes me feel like I have more ability to shop around for vendors if I go with the FOIRL products. Thanks in advance for any help you can give me. Please send responses to kjm@adpplz.