A network interface controller (also known as a network interface card, network adapter, LAN adapter and by similar terms) is a computer hardware component that connects a computer to a computer network.
Early network interface controllers were commonly implemented on expansion cards that plugged into a computer bus; the low cost and ubiquity of the Ethernet standard means that most newer computers have a network interface built into the motherboard.
Read more about Network Interface Controller: Purpose, Implementation
Famous quotes containing the word network:
“A culture may be conceived as a network of beliefs and purposes in which any string in the net pulls and is pulled by the others, thus perpetually changing the configuration of the whole. If the cultural element called morals takes on a new shape, we must ask what other strings have pulled it out of line. It cannot be one solitary string, nor even the strings nearby, for the network is three-dimensional at least.”
—Jacques Barzun (b. 1907)