What is a Network Interface Card (NIC)

What is a Network Interface Card

NIC is short for the Network Interface Card, or Network Interface Controller is a device that helps the computer to connect with other computers on the network. NIC allows a computer to exchange the data, information, and resources with the computer. To know what is a Network Interface Card keep reading this article till the ends.
To establish the connection, network interface cards use a suitable protocol, e.g. CSMA/CD (Carrier Sense Multiple Access/Collision Domain) and the network card usually implements the first two layers that are the physical layer, and the data link layer of the OSI Model.
The older network protocols such as ARCNET, LocalTalk or Token Ring were using earlier, but today, Ethernet is using on a large scale.

How NIC Cards works

NIC cards are effectively the center-man between your computer and also the network. It is responsible for translating information on the pc into a type that may be transferred via a network cable or wireless network signal. NIC cards also manage the data or information because it is distributed to different devices on the network.
Multiqueue NICs provide multiple transmit and receive queues, and let the packets received by the NIC to be assigned to one of its receive queues. The NIC can distribute incoming traffic between the receive queues by using a hash function.

Types of NIC Cards

There are mainly two types of NIC cards with specific configuration types:

• Ethernet
• Wi-Fi

 Ethernet

The Ethernet Network Interface Card is a wired NIC that is mostly used in a LAN, MAN, and WAN Networks, and today it is the most commonly used NIC in the world. It was first commercially introduced in 1980 and it is invented by the Robert Metcalfe. Initially, Ethernet could support up to 10 Megabits/Seconds (10 Mbps) and now this is greatly improved. Today it has gone as far as 10 Gbps (Gigabits/second).

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