SMC Gigabit Equipment Review
 

Until recently gigabit was too expensive for the average home user who wanted to setup a small LAN. However because of the technology improving the cost to the consumer has slowly been dropping. Just about all of the networking companies are selling gigabit switches and network cards at reasonable prices that are not much more than your standard 10/100 equipment. There are however different types of switches and network cards that will affect the overall cost of that item. To successfully setup a gigabit network you will need a 1000BASE-T switch, a 1000BASE-T NIC (Network Interface Card) in each computer you want to have gigabit, and cat 5e or cat 6 patch cables. The great thing about gigabit over copper is that it is backwards compatible with 10BASE-T and 100BASE-T standards. This means that you can have a mix of 10/100/1000BASE-T systems operating on the same network.

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