IEEE 802.3

IEEE 802.3 is a working group and a collection of standards defining the physical layer and data link layer's media access control (MAC) of wired Ethernet. The standards are produced by the working group of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). This set of standards generally applies to local area networks (LANs) and metropolitan area networks. It also has some applications to access networks and wide area network (WAN) applications. The international standard IEEE/ISO/IEC 8802-3-2021 was adopted from 802.3-2018. Physical connections are made between network nodes and, usually, various network infrastructure devices (hubs, switches, routers) by various types of copper cables or optical fiber. 802.3 standards support the IEEE 802.1 network architecture. 802.3 also defines a LAN medium access control method using carrier-sense multiple access with collision detection (CSMA/CD).