CompTIA A+® Certification All-In-One For Dummies®, 2nd Edition

1.7. Understanding Network Protocols

To ensure that all the networking components work with one another, networking standards have been developed. If a company decides that it wants to develop something like a network card, it will ensure that the network card follows a standard so that it can communicate with all the other networking components. In this section, you find out about the different network standards that help each networking vendor develop networking components that function alongside other networking devices.

1.7.1. IEEE standards

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has developed a number of LAN standards that define the physical components of networking technologies. In these standards, the IEEE has defined such things as how network cards place data on the wire and the type of cabling used in different types of LANs. The LAN standards are defined by Project 802, which was launched in February 1980. These 12 standards, shown in Table 1-3, define different networking architectures.

Table 1.3. Project 802 LAN Standards

Project	Description
802.1	Internetworking
802.2	Logical Link Control (LLC)
802.3	Ethernet (CSMA/CD)
802.4	Token Bus LAN
802.5	Token Ring LAN
802.6	Metropolitan Area Network
802.7	Broadband Technical Advisory Group
802.8	Fiber Optic Technical Advisory Group
802.9	Integrated Voice/Data Network
802.10	Network Security
802.11	Wireless Networks
802.12	Demand Priority Access LAN

A few of the networking standards that you should be familiar with are 802.3, ...