why haven't ethernet connectors changed?

Fri Dec 21 20:24:05 UTC 2012

HDMI is also extremely distance limited.  At those kinds of distances
you probably would have no problem running 8 gbps over a Cat 6 with
RJ-45s as well.  I don't know how many people remember it but 1G used to
be real expensive as well.  In a few years you will see the 10 gbps
D-Link switches at Best Buy for $40.  Bottom line is that vendor know
that people who need 10G speeds can afford to pay for the privilege.

The important thing about consumer connectors is that plugging a cable
in the wrong place should not blow anything up.  You can use an RJ45 for
anything you want as long as plugging that into an Ethernet port or
console port doesn't smoke anything.  There is not much magical about an
HDMI cable, it is was just a way for the home entertainment equipment
makers to avoid having your mom hooking up multiple component video,
multichannel audio, and Ethernet and flooding their support phones.  For
datacenters there is no such push because there is no telling how many
connections you need to a server and there are geeks like us to figure
out the piles of wires.

Steven Naslund

-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Adams [mailto:cmadams at hiwaay.net] 
Sent: Friday, December 21, 2012 12:22 PM
To: nanog at nanog.org
Subject: Re: why haven't ethernet connectors changed?

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.