[tostaki]

Does somebody have some insight about why there is such a gap between 1G ethernet and 10G ? I mean I have gigabit internet at my home why can't I have a faster local network for a reasonable price ? Is it just too soon or there is a real technological gap ?

[fulafel]

Consumer demand for faster ethernet has essentially stalled at the same time as wired broadband stopped getting faster. People don't expect to get > 1G broadband any time soon. 10 years ago broadband was doubling in speed regularly. Instead moving last mile to faster fiber, demand was channeled to iPhones with choppy 4G.

[mti]

Here in Japan, the NURO Hikari service of Sony Network Communications offers FTTH with 10 Gbps downlink and 2.5 Gbps uplink speeds for around ¥6500 (~65 USD) per month. It's only available in the central wards of Tokyo and a part of Kanagawa prefecture, but you can get it right now.

[wmf]

My impression is that a 10Gbase-T PHY requires far more than 10x as many transistors as a 1000base-T PHY; maybe closer to 100x. This caused a death spiral where high prices lead to low volume that prevents prices from dropping.

[DiabloD3]

There is also the problem that 10gbe over copper requires interleaving, whereas optical doesn't. A lot of 10gbit uses are latency sensitive. 2.5 and 5 usage is not likely to be latency sensitive usage.

2.5 and 5 are based on the existing 10gbase-t technology, and can be deployed over existing Cat5e and Cat6, whereas 10gbase-t only works reliably over existing Cat6 sometimes less than 100ft.

802.3bz's genius is basically running 10gbase-t at half or quarter the clock speed, requiring lower spec cabling but also lower power/lower heat parts. I don't know why this wasn't done as part of the original 10gbase-t specification (802.3an, which is now 10 years old; in comparison, 802.3ab, which defines 1gbase-t, is 17).

In addition, for embedded hardware, 2.5 and 5 are a better fit for common on-chip SerDes implementations when you need to wire stuff up that way.

As for power usage, a modern 10gbase-T controller ran at 1/4th the clockspeed (and voltage also appropriately adjusted) would use less than 1/4th the power, but be more power efficient than an existing modern 1gbase-t, per gbit/sec.

The real question is, when will all the cheap "we need an ethernet port but nothing fancy" controllers (which are all gigabit in anything recognizable as a computer, 100mbit becoming more and more rare in anything not recognizable as a computer) become baby 10gbit? That's all I really care about.

[walrus01]

10GBaseT only works reliably over "cat6a" and cat7 cable that costs close to $350 per 1000 ft (305 meters), whereas two strand singlemode G.657.A2 type cable now costs less than $85 per 1000 ft, or less than cat5e. This is why most datacenter environments use fiber and not copper. Also cat6a and cat7 will fill overhead cabling trays a great deal faster because of its huge diameter compared to singlemode patch cables.

[DiabloD3]

Yes, this is true. I work in this industry, and I also recommend fibre over copper for these reasons. However, for rack local wiring (ie, wiring servers into top of rack switches), cat6 for 10gbase-t is acceptable, although I don't particularly care for it.

[snuxoll]

Eh, with the plethora of DAC SFP+ cables at extremely affordable prices I don't really see many people using CAT6 - especially considering the substantially higher power draw that 10GBase-T has over the DAC's.

[mjevans]

This doesn't quite fulfill the role either though...

A quick search for SFP+ cards that can handle 10Gbit/sec shows that the typical price is ~200 USD/card right now (this is still at least 3x the cost per card I'd prefer to see).

Given the pricing on individual cards I'd hate to consider the price of a switch, if such a thing even exists.

[walrus01]

Agree. $15 for the whole thing.

http://www.fs.com/products/30851.html

Same price of $15 for 3 meter. Slightly more if you're scared of buying things direct from mainland China.

[rasz_pl]

its not transistor count, its process node (speed) and resulting cost of tapeouts