ITC/USA 2011 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Seventh Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 24-27, 2011 / Bally's Las Vegas, Las Vegas, Nevada / The higher bandwidth capacities available with the adoption of Ethernet technology for networked FTI data acquisition systems enable more data to be acquired by the Data Acquisition Unit (DAU) from high-speed data busses, with higher channel densities, faster sampling rates, and sample resolution. Ethernet offers increased flexibility, interoperability, and simplicity in terms of the FTI system topology. However, the adoption of Ethernet has numerous implications for the design and operation of the DAU in terms of supporting network protocols for synchronization, configuration, and the transmission of the acquired data. This paper explores these issues and discusses the merits of adopting Ethernet.