The Fast Ethernet Alliance has published its Media Independent Interface specification, which has been adopted by the IEEE for inclusion in the 100Base-T draft standard currently under development: the IEEE’s 802.3u task force has now approved sending the five specifications for review. The Media Independent Interface specification is designed to address how an IEEE 802.3 Media Access Controller will interface with any of the physical transmission methods which 100Base-T is designed to address, and is equivalent to the AUI connection interface for Ethernet. It has been chosen by the IEEE 802.3 CSMA/CD high speed working group as the basis for an IEEE draft along with the 4T+ specification for Category 3, 4 and 5 unshielded twisted pair and the 100Base-X specification for 100Mbps Ethernet running over two-pair Category 5 unshielded twisted pair. The new Media Independent Interface specification was developed by companies which have been active within the alliance, including 3Com Corp, Cabletron Systems Inc, David Systems Inc, Digital Equipment Corp, Grand Junction Networks Inc, Intel Corp, LANNET Inc, National Semiconductor Corp, Sun Microsystems Inc and SynOptics Communications Inc.
