The objectives were to provide an unbiased, industry-based source of educational information; to ensure interoperability among disparate, standards-based components and systems; to support the development of standards that support Ethernet technology; and to bring together the Ethernet industry to collaborate on the future of the technology.

Unfortunately, this was often long before the technology would reach volume adoption and there was seldom support for smaller Ethernet standards projects.

The Road to 100G Alliance was formally announced on June 19, 2007 at the NXTcomm 2007 show in Chicago, Illinois to promote 100 Gigabit Ethernet.

There were eighteen founding members of the Ethernet Alliance: 3Com (now HP), ADC (now Tyco Electronics), Agere Systems (now LSI), Applied Micro Circuits Corporation (now AppliedMicro), Aquantia, Broadcom, Force10 Networks (now Dell), Foundry Networks (now Brocade), Intel, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Pioneer Corporation, Quake Technologies (now AppliedMicro), Samsung, Sun Microsystems (now Oracle Corporation), Tehuti Networks, Tyco Electronics (now TE Connectivity), the University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL), and Xilinx.

The Ethernet Alliance University Program (EAUP), allows professors and students to become involved in the organization and have access to member generated data, collaborate on educational materials, students can participate in an internship program and universities can contribute to the EAUP Intellectual Property Data Base.