Editing EtherType (section)

{{short description|Field in Ethernet frames indicating which protocol is encapsulated in the payload}}
{{Use American English|date = March 2019}}

'''EtherType''' is a two-[[Octet (computing)|octet]] field in an [[Ethernet frame]].  It is used to indicate which [[Communications protocol|protocol]] is [[Encapsulation (networking)|encapsulated]] in the payload of the frame and is used at the receiving end by the [[data link layer]] to determine how the payload is processed. The same field is also used to indicate the size of some Ethernet frames.

EtherType is also used as the basis of [[802.1Q VLAN tagging]], [[Encapsulation (networking)|encapsulating]] packets from VLANs for transmission multiplexed with other VLAN traffic over an [[Ethernet trunk]].

EtherType was first defined by the [[Ethernet II framing]] standard and later adapted for the [[IEEE 802.3]] standard. EtherType values are assigned by the [[IEEE Registration Authority]].