I've looked through all the documentation I can find and haven't been able
to find an answer to this one, so I'll throw it out here to see if anyone
has any clues about it.

I have a 10Mbps link between two locations which is (supposedly) full
duplex and is presented as a 10BaseT port at either end. The routers
connected to each end have 3Com Vortex cards in them. In both cases, the
card connected to the 10Mbps link reports a constantly increasing number
in the "carrier" value in ifconfig. No other errors appear. The link
passes traffic but not perfectly. The link itself is not flooded.

Neither end of the link appears to support autonegotiation and both ends
seem to identify themselves as "10BaseT-HD". However, setting the NICs to
half duplex yields a much greater incidence of packet loss and log
messages about a possible duplex mismatch. However, the "carrier" number
stops increasing. Nailing the cards at 10BaseT-FD is apparently the
correct configuration. I can confirm it's not the wire since that has been
changed out without a noticeable change in the situation.

My question for the group is this: what exactly does the "carrier" number
mean when referring to a full duplex ethernet connection? Better yet, does
this give me ammunition to beat up my provider in this case?

-- 
William Astle
finger [EMAIL PROTECTED] for further information

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