An industry-standard type of local area network (LAN) that enables real-time communication between systems connected directly through cables. Ethernet uses a Carrier Sense Multiple Access/Collision Detection (CSMA/CD) algorithm as its access method, wherein all nodes listen for, and any node can begin transmitting data. If multiple nodes attempt to transmit at the same time (a collision), the transmitting nodes wait for a random time before attempting to transmit again.