An ethernet PHY (serdes) immediately notices whether there is an ethernet link, even when autonegotiation is disabled (on both sides). How exactly does this work, does the PHY continuously send some kind of "background" Fast Link Pulses ?
Is there something like background/inactivity traffic in full-duplex ethernet (say 100BaseT), what about 1000BaseT and 1000BaseX (optical) ? Does the same go for 10/100 half-duplex ethernet (CSMA-CD) ?
I just wonder what goes over the (serial) ethernet wire-pairs when no data is exchanged (temporarily).
I guess the parallel (xMII) link between PHY and MAC never exchanges inactivity like traffic, is this true ?
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