Current Ethernet standards promise transfer speeds of 100Megabits and more. This is significantly faster than established most of the field bus systems, and embedded network. Therefore Ethernet also seems to be a good choice for connecting industrial devices with real time requirements. With Ethernet, data communication can be delayed unpredictably. The reason for Ethernet's nondeterminism is its stochastic media access mechanism CSMA/CD (carrier sense multiple access with collision detection). To achieve predictable timing on Ethernet network collision need to be avoided. Moving from shared Ethernet to a switched Ethernet seems to be a promising solution. Time slicing is a better method for predictable data communication via Ethernet with very short cycle times and precise timing.