why haven't ethernet connectors changed?

Chris Adams cmadams at hiwaay.net
Fri Dec 21 18:22:08 UTC 2012


Once upon a time, Michael Thomas <mike at mtcc.com> said:
> That's why G*d invented RTP, of course. And all of these buses are "slow"
> by the time they're popular enough to worry about. In any case, delete
> the "ethernet" part if you want to still play with the mac/phy.

Well, the reply was sent in response to somebody talking about HDMI.
HDMI 1.4 can carry over 8 gigabits per second, so to re-use ethernet PHY
(and still be copper) you'd have to go with 10GBaseT.  The cheapest
10GBaseT card I see at a glance is over $400, while I can find Blu-Ray
players with HDMI 1.4 (and oh yeah, an optical drive, video decoder,
etc.) for under $100.

I'm sure some of that price difference is related to manufacturing
volume, but I don't think it is that big of a percentage.

I will say that one nice thing about having different connectors for
different protocols (on consumer devices anyway) is that you don't have
to worry about somebody plugging the Internet into the "Video 1" port
and wondering why they aren't getting a picture.
-- 
Chris Adams <cmadams at hiwaay.net>
Systems and Network Administrator - HiWAAY Internet Services
I don't speak for anybody but myself - that's enough trouble.




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