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What exactly is gigabyte ethernet?
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Gigabit ethernet allows for data transfers at one gigabit per second. Slower standards include 100 Mbit and 10 Mbit. In order to achieve gigabit ethernet, all component and cables between the devices you're connecting obviously have to support the gigabit standard.
Of course, the vast majority of people don't have anything close to gigabit internet service from their home cable/DSL provider, so it doesn't make any difference for most home users connecting to the external world. But it is useful in corporate settings with very fast connections and for moving data quickly within an internal network.
Of course, the vast majority of people don't have anything close to gigabit internet service from their home cable/DSL provider, so it doesn't make any difference for most home users connecting to the external world. But it is useful in corporate settings with very fast connections and for moving data quickly within an internal network.
I presume you're thinking of gigabit ethernet which is what all current macs come equipped with.
Gigabit ethernet works just like normal ethernet except that the maximum speed of the network will be 1 Gb instead of 100 Mb.
In order to use gigabit ethernet you need to have two computers with gigabit ethernet cards (all current macs and many older ones) and a gigabit router.
Note that there's no additional advantages beyond the faster transfer speed so unless you're routinely transferring GB of data across your network it probably isn't worth the additional cost.
EDIT: Speaking of networking... my stupid router ate this post and wildcowboy beat me to it. As he noted, your internet connection is most likely slower then even 10Mb ethernet.
The only place I really utilized the gigabit internet connection was at college, because we had the network in place to do so. Oh it was wondrous transferring such huge files so fast!
Actual speeds are slower Its 540 but actual speeds are 200. Plus tcp/ip over head.
Not quite...max is 540 Mbps, while the typical transfer rate is closer to 200 Mbps. And, of course, if you have a single non-"n" device on the network, you lose the "n" speed.
Gigabit Ethernet. And just FYI, that speed will *NOT* help with your internet connection, and will of course *NOT* be applicable to wireless-just devices physically plugged in to the Airport base station's switch.
Gigabit is basically just a 10x faster version of 100Mbps Ethernet (1Gbps = 1024Mbps), although in some implementations it only achieves the extra speed by using all the wires in the Ethernet cable instead of just half of them like 100Mbps does. 802.11n wireless is much slower, because not only does it have a lower maximum theoretical speed limited by the frequencies it operates at, but also because wireless is essentially a half-duplex technology, meaning that only one device can broadcast a data packet at any one time. Therefore all devices on a wireless network compete against each other for bandwidth.
Early versions of wired ethernet were also half-duplex, but since network switches (rather than hubs or ethernet bus co-ax) became common most people run it at full-duplex, where each connected machine can receive and transmit at the same time.
Therefore wired ethernet is always faster than wireless.
Early versions of wired ethernet were also half-duplex, but since network switches (rather than hubs or ethernet bus co-ax) became common most people run it at full-duplex, where each connected machine can receive and transmit at the same time.
Therefore wired ethernet is always faster than wireless.
Heads up - this can get very confusing.
Bits and bytes are not the same. A gigabyte is not the same as a gigabit.
A bit is like a single letter of the alphabet, except this alphabet has only 2 letters - which are '0' and '1'
A byte is like a word, and (almost) always has 8 letters (or 'bits') i.e. 00110101
A program or file is like a whole book, with chapters, sections, words, all made of letters or 'bits' and looks a bit like this:
01010010 10100011 101010101 01110001 0101000 101010010
A gigabit ethernet transmits bits at the rate of 1 billion per second. Apple's new Airport Expreme Base Station has this, and so do all modern macs.
Most people still have the previous level, 100Mb ethernet, which transmits at 100 million bits per second, and is usually enough for most small networks.
A *gigabyte* ethernet transmits 1 billion .. what? *bytes* per second! or 8 billion bits per second. Not many people in the world have this, and the hardware can cost $1000 for a single port / connection.
Hope that helps.
(waiting for the corrections now)
Bits and bytes are not the same. A gigabyte is not the same as a gigabit.
A bit is like a single letter of the alphabet, except this alphabet has only 2 letters - which are '0' and '1'
A byte is like a word, and (almost) always has 8 letters (or 'bits') i.e. 00110101
A program or file is like a whole book, with chapters, sections, words, all made of letters or 'bits' and looks a bit like this:
01010010 10100011 101010101 01110001 0101000 101010010
A gigabit ethernet transmits bits at the rate of 1 billion per second. Apple's new Airport Expreme Base Station has this, and so do all modern macs.
Most people still have the previous level, 100Mb ethernet, which transmits at 100 million bits per second, and is usually enough for most small networks.
A *gigabyte* ethernet transmits 1 billion .. what? *bytes* per second! or 8 billion bits per second. Not many people in the world have this, and the hardware can cost $1000 for a single port / connection.
Hope that helps.
(waiting for the corrections now)
Yes it does, it has WiFi N and Quad Gigabit ethernet. How do i know? i am using it right now
Did you notice how old this thread is? When the airport extreme was first released it didn't have gigabit ethernet for some reason. Apple updated it a few months later and added gigabit ethernet.
I'm closing this thread because it's giving me a headache. 
Just to summarize...
1) Gigabyte ethernet is not available on consumer products.
2) The newest Airport Extreme Basestation has gigabit ethernet.
3) Older AEBS's do not.
4) Gigabit ethernet is a term that applies only to ethernet wired connections. It has no meaning in the context of wireless connections.
5) Gigabit ethernet means that the theoretical transmission rate (absence of a bottleneck) is 1 gigabit per second.
Just to summarize...
1) Gigabyte ethernet is not available on consumer products.
2) The newest Airport Extreme Basestation has gigabit ethernet.
3) Older AEBS's do not.
4) Gigabit ethernet is a term that applies only to ethernet wired connections. It has no meaning in the context of wireless connections.
5) Gigabit ethernet means that the theoretical transmission rate (absence of a bottleneck) is 1 gigabit per second.
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