Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is an organization composed of engineers, scientists, and students. It is best know for developing standards for the computer and electronics industry.

The IEEE 802 standard is the most widely recognized in the computer industry:


 * IEEE 802.1: Standards related to network management.
 * IEEE 802.2: General standard for the data link layer in the OSI Reference Model. The IEEE divides this layer into two sublayers, the data link control (DLC) layer and the media access control (MAC) layer. The MAC layer varies for different network types and is defined by standards IEEE 802.3 through IEEE 802.5.
 * IEEE 802.3: Defines the MAC layer for bus networks that use CSMA/CD. This is the basis of the Ethernet standard.
 * IEEE 802.4: Defines the MAC layer for bus networks that use a token-passing mechanism (token bus networks).
 * IEEE 802.5: Defines the MAC layer for token-ring networks.
 * IEEE 802.6: Standard for Metropolitan Area Networks (MANs).