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Ethernet, still going strong after 36 years, can be associated with these varied prepositions: up, into, across, over, and down.

It’s going up in local-area-network (LAN) speed to 40 and 100 Gbits/s. Recall that we started Ethernet in 1973 at 2.94 Mbits/s.

It’s going into the core of our long-haul networks, replacing Sonet at 40 Gbits/s today over long-haul dense wavelength-division multiplexing (DWDM). Terabit Ethernet is on the horizon.

It’s going across the carrier-induced “telechasm,” replacing T1 and other old gear, with burgeoning Carrier Ethernet services.

It’s going over the airwaves as Wi-Fi and WiMAX.

And, it’s going down in forms, including ZigBee, the wireless networking of an increasing fraction of each year’s 10 billion new embedded microcontrollers.