Hacker News Reader

Comment by erik | Hacker News Reader

Another factor: data centres moved to fiber. And fiber is less physically robust and not great for desktop connections or plugging in to a laptop.

10GBASE-T exists, but it turns out pushing 10gbit/s over 100m of twisted pair requires chips that are hot and power hungry. Again, not great for desktops or laptops. And because it’s not used in data centres, there are no economies of scale or trickle down effects.

Gigabit Ethernet and wifi being “good enough” combined with 10gig over twisted pair being expensive and power hungry means that the consumer space has been stuck for a long time.

View on HN

This is, IMHO, completely right, though I think at this point the physical robust issue is moot.

It's easy enough to get G.657.B3/G.657.A3 cables, and you can wrap them repeatedly around a pencil and they are fine.

Also, most consumers would not notice the bend attenuation anymore becuase they aren't trying to get 10km out of them :)

2.5Gb ethernet seems to be starting to trickle out at least. It's becoming a more common thing on desktop motherboards. Doesn't seem like there is a lot of 2.5Gb routers yet though.

Thank Intel for single-handedly changing the 2.5Gbps landscape by integrating 2.5Gb Ethernet on their chipsets, allowing no-brainer OEM integration. Unfortunately, unless ISP router OEMs (Nokia, Zyxel, Huawei et al.) do their part (the reason being that very few people actually bothers to buy a separate router), we will not see the economies of scale necessary to fully finish 2.5Gb Ethernet.

But is kind of sad they skip 5Gbps. I thought it was the best compromise for consumer between 1 and 10 Gbps Ethernet.

5 Gbps will probably come to the consumer market around 2030.

> But is kind of sad they skip 5Gbps. I thought it was the best compromise for consumer between 1 and 10 Gbps Ethernet.

I suppose forwards compatibility is good, but unfortunatel unlike 2.5Gbps, 5Gbps is practically unusable on existing CAT5e cables.

> fiber is less physically robust

Maybe this used to be the case long ago, but I don’t think it’s true today. Personally I’m pretty rough with fiber (having slammed cabinet doors on fiber, looped fiber around posts with a low bend radius, left the ends exposed to dust, etc) and had no issues within a data center. Can’t say the same for copper. Even the cheapest 10km optics have more margin when your link is only 50m.

Oh and bend insensitive fiber is dirt cheap and works just fine when it’s tied into knots.

Yes, even in my days with FDDI (pre-2000) you could wrap them around your finger, no matter if multi- or single mode. At least for 'demo'-purposes, to stop the hyperventilation of some people. Nonetheless I've seen horrible installations, where I've straightened out the gordic knots when I've seen them, just to be sure ;-)

The robustness gap has narrowed (not just with better fiber; some cat-6 STP is surprisingly fragile compared to old cat 5), but I think copper is still more robust for short runs where there will be many insertions and removals.

> And fiber is less physically robust and not great for desktop connections

i buy armored multimode patch cables for, i dunno, 10 or 20% more per unit length, and they seem indestructible in my residential short-distance use cases.

> Gigabit Ethernet and wifi being “good enough”

i think this explains it all. when the average user prefers wireless to wired gigabit, we know how much bandwidth they actually need, and it isn't >=gigabit.

It takes special connectors to survive being disconnected and reconnected daily and cables left disconnected with out the risk of an accidental laser eye surgery

> It takes special connectors to survive being disconnected and reconnected daily

i don't know what you're using, but the LC/LC connectors i use seem pretty durable, and the springy bit that wears out can be replaced. the SFP+ modules are all metal; i am unwilling to believe they can wear out.

> and cables left disconnected with out the risk of an accidental laser eye surgery

single mode, which isn't human-visible, is of concern but the multimode (which i mentioned using) isn't any worse than a cheap laser pointer. it isn't strong, and you can see it.

I mostly deal with single mode and in industrial environments, on top of the safety hazard fibers left dangling tend not to work when plugged back in due to dust. There are special connectors for applications such as ship to shore that address these issues.

Maybe a laser in your eye is an acceptable risk in your home but I doubt it is an acceptable hazard in a work place.

>requires chips that are hot and power hungry.

That is finally improving. The technology improvement meant we get less than 5W per port on 10Gbps. Cost will need to come down though.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com