10/100 ETHERNET LAN?

[steveho]

Thinking about buying a new pc and in the spec of the pc there is an 'integrated 10/100 ethernet lan'.Can anyone explain what this is please.Thank you.

[Hippy]

LAN = Local Area Network and is where a number of computers are connected together so as to share resources. The 10/100 refers to the speed of the data transfer. 10 being slower and older than 100 (kilo bis per second).

There will be a bloated telephone type socket on the computer to allow for the direct cable connection. The cable then goes to a hub, switch or router of some sort on the network.

[stephen.hove]

so if you want to connect your computer to the internet that is the thing you need. otherwise you would have to fit a network card (NIC). so go for the one with the 10/100 ethernet.

[Hippy]

The Internet is a Wide Area Network. Unless you have an Internet connection going through a router into a Local Area Network, then you will have to connect to the Internet via a modem (either dial up or broadband). The Computer you are considering may have an analogue (dial-up - 56K?) modem fitted, but if not then you can get them to fit in the case if it is a desktop or tower type, or a plug in (PCMCIA) type for a laptop. For most types of computer you can get Universal Serial Bus (USB) types that stay outside the computer and connect to sockets on the machine.

A Network Interface Card (NIC) is only necessary if you are going to connect to a local network, like wires or radio around the house or office.

If you do not have a local network running around your house or office, then the NIC Ethernet 10/100 connection is redundant.

[j2buttonsw]

I'll add to the confusion: you can connect to some modems via the ethernet card (or NIC), as I do, and 10 Mbps is more than adequate for this kind of traffic.This is also true when using routers for internet access. I prefer using ethernet to connect to the modem as you don't need any drivers. If you want to network more than one computer you would normally do it via ethernet and having a 100 Mbps NIC is preferrable. Most modems (broadband and external 56 k dial-up) use USB to connect (as hippy points out). You can use the ethernet card to connect to a LAN or a WAN (or, indeed, a MAN) so putting "LAN" in the description is not helpful as you do not have a local area network integrated into your computer. Nearlly all new PCs and laptops will have an integrated ethernet card.