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PurposeEdit

A Madge 4/16 Mbit/s Token Ring ISA-16 NIC

The network controller implements the electronic circuitry required to communicate using a specific physical layer and data link layer standard such as Ethernet, Fibre Channel, Wi-Fi or Token Ring. This provides a base for a full network protocol stack, allowing communication among small groups of computers on the same local area network(LAN) and large-scale network communications through routable protocols, such as Internet Protocol (IP).

The NIC allows computers to communicate over a computer network, either by using cables or wirelessly. The NIC is both a physical layer and data link layer device, as it provides physical access to a networking medium and, for IEEE 802 and similar networks, provides a low-level addressing system through the use of MAC addressesthat are uniquely assigned to network interfaces.

Although other network technologies exist,IEEE 802 networks including the Ethernet variants have achieved near-ubiquity since the mid-1990s.