LANs no longer serve only to help office workers share printers and exchange files. The future of the LAN runs heavily to bandwidth-intensive applications. The authors of Switched, Fast, and Gigabit Ethernet know this, and they do excellent work in bringing their readers up to speed on the newest high-capacity Ethernet technologies. Using conceptual illustrations and circuit diagrams liberally, Switched, Fast, and Gigabit Ethernet defines the three LAN standards in its title and details how they compare to each other and to competing technologies such as Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM). You'll find coverage of repeaters, bridges, routers, and full-duplex Ethernet, along with information on Virtual LANs (VLANs) and Layer 3 switching. The authors don't get swept up in the hype associated with these new technologies, even when offering practical advice on building, expanding, and managing LANs. They acknowledge that, in many cases, 10BaseT networks will be fine for some time, but they go to much trouble to spotlight the implementation issues of particular concern to managers of high-capacity LANs. In addition to coverage of emergent Ethernet technologies, Switched, Fast, and Gigabit Ethernet provides context by presenting a history of the networking industry and the technologies and companies that have defined it. This book is a complete picture of the LAN industry. --David Wall