What Does 10-Gigabit Ethernet (10GbE) Mean?

10 Gigabit Ethernet (10 GbE, 10 GE or 10 GigE) is a telecommunications technology that transmits data packets over Ethernet at a rate of 10 billion bits per second. This innovation extended the traditional and familiar use of Ethernet in the local area network (LAN) to a much wider field of network application, including high-speed storage area networks (SAN), wide area networks (WAN) and metropolitan area networks (MAN).

Techopedia Explains 10-Gigabit Ethernet (10GbE)

10 GbE differs from traditional Ethernet in that it takes advantage of full-duplex protocol, in which data is transmitted in both directions simultaneously by using a networking switch to link devices. This means that the technology strays from the Carrier Sense Multiple Access/Collision Detection (CSMA/CD) protocols, which are rules used to determine how network devices will respond when two devices attempt to use a data channel simultaneously, also called a collision. Since the transmission in 10 GbE is bidirectional, the transfer of frames is faster.