The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) successfully created SONET as the new standard for these applications. SONET like Ethernet is a layer one protocol known as interface layer technology or in the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model is termed the physical layer. SONET acts as a carrier of multiple higher level application protocols. AS an example SONET acting as a carrier can configure Internet Protocol (IP) packets to transmit over SONET at data speeds between 155 megabits per second (OC-3) and 2.5 gigabits per second (Gbps). In order for these high-bandwidth data streams to perform and be built SONET multiplexes together several channels having bandwidth as low as 64 kilobits per second (Kbps) into data frames. The way this is created is that a data packet is built into sequence of bits then they are synchronized into a frame and sent along the SONET path making it possible for the receiving and transmitting end to detect the beginning and end of the packet in the stream of bits. This creates limited error for loss of data and creates a transmission signal check to ensure the data packets were received.
Compared to Ethernet cabling that have distances of up to a 328 feet. SONET fiber runs much longer and even the uses of SONET on short distances it can still reach distances of up to 1.2 miles.
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