Ethernet turns 45 today: finalized by the big three in 1980, its speed has multiplied 80,000 times and it still hasn't retired. On September 30, 1980, DEC, Intel, and Xerox jointly released version 1.0 of the Ethernet specification. This document, later known as the "DIX standard," predated the birth of the modern internet by nearly three years. Forty-five years later, that RJ45 port on the back of your desktop PC, and in data centers

💡 What You Will Learn

Ethernet turns 45 today: finalized by the big three in 1980, its speed has multiplied 80,000 times and it still hasn't retired. On September 30, 1980, DEC, Intel, and Xerox jointly released version 1.

📜 Table of Contents

• Finalized Three Years Before the Internet
• Speed Grew 80,000-Fold in 45 Years
• Wi-Fi 7 Is Out, Yet the Ethernet Port Still Stands
• How It Survived 45 Years

Ethernet Turns 45 Today: Finalized by Three Giants in 1980, Speed Has Grown 80,000-Fold and It Still Hasn't Retired

On September 30, 1980, DEC, Intel, and Xerox jointly released version 1.0 of the Ethernet specification. This document, later known as the "DIX standard," predated the birth of the modern internet by nearly three years. Forty-five years later, that RJ45 port on the back of your desktop PC and the 800Gbps fiber links running in data centers are all using the same specification.

Finalized Three Years Before the Internet

Ethernet's experimental prototype was running at Xerox PARC back in 1973, invented by Robert Metcalfe. It originally used coaxial cable at roughly 3Mbps, connecting Alto workstations and the world's first networked laser printer. By 1980, Xerox teamed up with DEC and Intel to turn the experimental technology into a formal specification, bumping the speed to 10Mbps. Because the cover was blue, the industry called it the "Blue Book."

At the time, computer manufacturers were generally reluctant to build networking into their machines, fearing their own network cards wouldn't connect with other vendors' equipment and that they'd waste money on integration costs. The DIX specification was simply opened up for any manufacturer to use freely — anyone could build hardware to it, and Xerox even gave up trademark protection. That decision spread Ethernet across the entire industry. Three years later, in 1983, TCP/IP was deployed and the modern internet finally took shape.

Speed Grew 80,000-Fold in 45 Years

From 10Mbps to 800Gbps, the speed has grown 80,000-fold. The medium has switched from coaxial cable to twisted pair to fiber, the connector from BNC to RJ45, yet the frame format and underlying mechanisms remain compatible to this day. An old network card plugged into a new switch still works — you'd be hard-pressed to find another example of this in the communications industry. The pace of speed upgrades has been remarkably regular too: 100 megabit in 1995, gigabit four years later, then a step up every few years after that — it hasn't stopped in 40 years.

Wi-Fi 7 Is Out, Yet the Ethernet Port Still Stands

Wireless has raced ahead to Wi-Fi 7, but wired Ethernet still holds the advantage in speed, latency, and stability. Gamers, home lab enthusiasts, and NAS tinkerers still treat the RJ45 as a must-have when building a PC. Thin-and-light laptops and small-form-factor desktops have dropped the port, so manufacturers sell USB-C to RJ45 adapters — and back in the office with its wired network environment, users plug right back in.

Tom's Hardware groups the Ethernet port alongside the 3.5mm headphone jack and the IEC power connector: decades later, they're all still here. The common thread among these three is straightforward — each uses a single cable to solve a scenario that wireless can't: one needs stable data transfer, one needs audio compatibility, one needs reliable power delivery.

How It Survived 45 Years

A standard finalized in 1980 has outlasted competitors like IBM's push for Token Ring, and weathered two generations of wireless assault. It survived on two things: continuous speed upgrades, from 10M all the way to 800G; and fully open standards, free for any manufacturer to use since 1980. Add backward compatibility on top, and old equipment never needs to be retired immediately, easing the pressure on users to replace their gear.

Looking back, Xerox giving up its trademark and licensing fees back then built the networking foundation for an entire industry. When this specification was published, transferring a file between computers meant floppy disks and human legwork; 45 years later, global data center traffic runs inside the frame structure it defined. Every motherboard you buy today — the Ethernet port on the back panel is probably still the most heavily used one.

That port on the back of your desktop — is it running gigabit or 2.5G right now?