10GigE is a head scratcher, to me. It’s slower than both USB and WiFi, by costa more and is much bulkier, despite GigE being a longstanding standard that faster than both for a very long time.
I’d love for my wired Macs and wired NAS to have a 10GigE connection but I’m not even sure that’s a feasible option for consumer-grade equipment.
Is there a reason for that?
10GbE is an order of magnitude faster than WiFi and similar in speed to USB 3.1. USB is usually short-range and entirely peer-to-peer. Ethernet can be switched and easily transmitted over relatively long distances.
The SSDs in present-day MacBook Pros and non-pro iMacs can read/write data far faster than 10Gb/s.
Mea culpa. I was thinking about how these technologies had surpassed GigE and applied it to 10GigE.
802.11ad only has a maximum throughput of 7Gibps (according to Wikipedia), but USB3.1 matches 10GigE in theoretical throughput, but like GigE, it may allow Full-Duplex and USB-C/3.1 may not, which halves directional throughput, as well as potential latency issues that Auxio mentions.
Still, my question holds. Why does a historically inexpensive, ubiquitous, and robust networking technology and protocol become such an expensive option when other networking technologies keep increasing their throughput?
I paid about $140 for 2x SFP+ PCIe cards and 2x SFP+ -> RJ-45 adapters. If you are close enough you can use a DAC cable and the whole setup is under $40. Assuming you have a PCIe slot available. As far as consumer prices goes it's pretty affordable. Then again you have to have something on the other end that can push data fast enough to make the 10GbE worth it. WiFi isn't really increasing it's throughput recently, they are just adding additional channels etc. I also don't know of any 10GbE backed access points so best case you will only hit gigabit with wifi ever.
There is a huge gap in 10GbE products because consumers have reached a "good enough" point with existing tech. In the last year or two consumer grade boards have finally started including 10GbE in high end gaming rigs. This is a chicken and egg problem as most consumers would not benefit from 10GbE even with 1GbE internet connections and they would need all new router/switch/etc and more than one device to use 10GbE. Most consumers/pro-sumers want access to a few tb of fast storage and there are tons of Internal,USB, and thunderbolt solutions for that.
802.11ad only has a maximum throughput of 7Gibps (according to Wikipedia), but USB3.1 matches 10GigE in theoretical throughput, but like GigE, it may allow Full-Duplex and USB-C/3.1 may not, which halves directional throughput, as well as potential latency issues that Auxio mentions.
802.11ad is very short range (for devices in the same room) and relatively few devices support it. Call it dead.
This discussion is confused. 802.11ad is for wirelessnetworks. 10GigE is for wired. 802.3ae is the main standard which defines how it works:
Since it's wired, and the PHY layer introduces very minimal overhead, the throughput is only limited by the overhead of the protocol you use to communicate between devices.
Are you really confused as to why I'm wondering why a wireless standard found in consumer devices is faster than wired standards found in consumer devices? No one is mentioning 100M runs. This is about Ethernet stagnating as a technology for consumers.
Do you even read anything? Even in the theoretical max case, it's not as fast (802.11ad). Let alone the real world case where there's all sorts of interference and other overhead.
And yes, 10GigE is not for the average consumer. That's the very reason why TB and USB exist: as a cheaper alternative for short-run, all in close proximity, uses (typical consumer). That's the reason why Apple has only put 10GigE in the iMac Pro (and likely the new Mac Pro).
Of course it's not for the average consumer because it's too costly. Again, that's the point. All the other Ethernet standards stepped well for the consumer and then GigE hit a brick wall… as did your thinking when you claimed that Ethernet is "about connecting devices in a large office building or multiple buildings." I had no idea that the GigE switch in my AirPort Extreme or the GigE port in Apple TV were for large office buildings and meant only to connect across multiple buildings¡
PS: You've really done a lot of beackbending to try to defend why Ethernet isn't for consumers just because I questioned how all the other standards stepped nicely and 10GigE hit a brick wall. I doubt you have any investment here so your motivation to make false claims without ever explaining why it's still so expensive while other technologies have increased in performance while dropping in cost per bit (which includes Ethernet up to GigE will likely forever remain a mystery.
Soli - your posts are confused. USB is not a networking standard. It's fine for hooking up your keyboard, or cheapie hard drive .. but not the basis to link all the computers in your office, or home (unless you have a very very small home). Nor is ethernet stagnating: it is the default networking standard, is incredibly robust, continues to evolve, and Apple has now for the first time supported 10G ethernet on the iMac Pro ... expect to see it included down the line as the new models come out (and certainly on the desktops). And ethernet has taken over and replaced copper wiring for phone systems and home automation, and door stations. Some people now use wireless in their homes to achieve that on the cheap ... but then you have to radiate your brain, and your body, and potentially give your kids cancer ... frankly, I'll take the safe fast wired version anytime.
10GigE is a head scratcher, to me. It’s slower than both USB and WiFi, by costa more and is much bulkier, despite GigE being a longstanding standard that faster than both for a very long time.
I’d love for my wired Macs and wired NAS to have a 10GigE connection but I’m not even sure that’s a feasible option for consumer-grade equipment.
Is there a reason for that?
10GbE is an order of magnitude faster than WiFi and similar in speed to USB 3.1. USB is usually short-range and entirely peer-to-peer. Ethernet can be switched and easily transmitted over relatively long distances.
The SSDs in present-day MacBook Pros and non-pro iMacs can read/write data far faster than 10Gb/s.
Mea culpa. I was thinking about how these technologies had surpassed GigE and applied it to 10GigE.
802.11ad only has a maximum throughput of 7Gibps (according to Wikipedia), but USB3.1 matches 10GigE in theoretical throughput, but like GigE, it may allow Full-Duplex and USB-C/3.1 may not, which halves directional throughput, as well as potential latency issues that Auxio mentions.
Still, my question holds. Why does a historically inexpensive, ubiquitous, and robust networking technology and protocol become such an expensive option when other networking technologies keep increasing their throughput?
I paid about $140 for 2x SFP+ PCIe cards and 2x SFP+ -> RJ-45 adapters. If you are close enough you can use a DAC cable and the whole setup is under $40. Assuming you have a PCIe slot available. As far as consumer prices goes it's pretty affordable. Then again you have to have something on the other end that can push data fast enough to make the 10GbE worth it. WiFi isn't really increasing it's throughput recently, they are just adding additional channels etc. I also don't know of any 10GbE backed access points so best case you will only hit gigabit with wifi ever.
There is a huge gap in 10GbE products because consumers have reached a "good enough" point with existing tech. In the last year or two consumer grade boards have finally started including 10GbE in high end gaming rigs. This is a chicken and egg problem as most consumers would not benefit from 10GbE even with 1GbE internet connections and they would need all new router/switch/etc and more than one device to use 10GbE. Most consumers/pro-sumers want access to a few tb of fast storage and there are tons of Internal,USB, and thunderbolt solutions for that.
The "most consumers would not benefit" argument also works with Thunderbolt and many other technology before it. How many notebook users are connecting external displays, and yet that tech has been every present since notebooks first launched. Even now, with USB-C there are adapters for digital and analog connections which most users simply never take advantage of. When 100Mibps Ethernet was most common GigE also wasn't going to benefit most customers, but the technology still took off because it was economically feasible. The question, for the last time, is why is 10GigE not only so costly but also such a bulky tech for 10x the data when other other Ethernet standards didn't suffer that fate.
Soli - your posts are confused. USB is not a networking standard.
You need to evolve your definition of how a digital telecommunications network is defined.
Nor is ethernet stagnating: it is the default networking standard, is incredibly robust, continues to evolve.
Being the default doesn't mean it's not stagnating. If you look at the timelines for Ethernet speed increases for consumer devices you can really say it's moving along just as quickly as its ever been? No. No you can't. The iPod was the default PMP as it was literally dying and I haven't used that word with Ethernet. I just said it had stagnated on GigE.
Instead of some people getting defensive, answering the question as to why 10GigE still costs so much and hasn't grown with anything resembling the history of Ethernet would be appreciated? Why anyone thinks that's an offensive question to ponder is beyond me, but it has clearly struck a chord with some people that think the topic is off limits.
As previously stated, there is 40GigE over copper, but Thunderbolt is both faster and cheaper and 10GigE, but I still hit a bottleneck with my home network but any conversation from TB to 10GigE becomes very expensive. It would be cheaper for me to replace my NAS with another RAID that supports TB3 than to buy a NAS with 10GigE, a switch with 10GigE, and this USB-C/3.1-to-10GigE adapter to connect them at 10x their current speeds. Getting faster throughput over WiFi than over a short range wired connection seems like a fail for Ethernet.
Seriously, Ethernet is not designed for someone who keeps all of their devices in close proximity to each other. Why you keep trying to beat the drum of your own personal home or small office is beyond me. Think about connecting devices in a large office building or multiple buildings in the same area, and you now see what Ethernet was designed for.
1) Yes it is and was. The spec allows for lengths as low as 3ft, but you can go lower without issue. It's also the most common length you obtained by consumers and businesses. Just check out a switch panel in any IT closet.
I have one in the basement of my home. But those short cable runs are purely for the interconnects between the switches I have. The places to where the data is finally delivered are all over my house (larger distances). There's no way I could run USB or TB cables to everywhere I need without adding repeaters/signal boosters at some points. And the cost of that cabling would be crazy expensive (and my house isn't even that big) relative to Ethernet (Cat5/Cat6) cabling.
2) You say Ethernet is all "about connecting devices in a large office building or multiple buildings" and yet I can point to countless consumer devices, from TVs, to printers, to cable modems, to routers, to switches, to desktops, to laptops, to game consoles, and even show how to connect an Ethernet cable to an iPhone, and many other devices, and yet you oddly claim that it's about businesses and loooooong runs in large office building and through multiple buildings. ߤ榺wj;♀️
There are a few reasons why it's in many devices, and why it's now being replaced by WiFi. Ethernet has been the defacto standard for connecting many (and varied) devices to the Internet for a long time now. It's also very simple and cheap to add an Ethernet port to any device. But since wireless networking is now ubiquitous, and the average consumer's Internet connection bandwidth isn't anywhere near what Ethernet provides, wired Ethernet no longer makes a lot of sense for the vast majority of consumers as a the way to give a device access to the Internet.
And for use-cases where consumers do need a lot of bandwidth, like backups and whatnot, it's much easier to just use a direct device-to-device cable like USB or TB since they can just keep it connected on their desk or walk over to the computer and connect it. As opposed to setting up the infrastructure required for Ethernet.
This is why I'm saying that wired Ethernet, these days, is mainly useful for long runs over large buildings with many connected devices. There are simpler solutions for consumer use cases. But wired Ethernet isn't going anywhere as a standard, as you seem to believe just because the average consumer use-case isn't there anymore.
How about Apple just build this in to MacBook Pros?!
Why would I want to make my portable thicker and heavier when it's usually on Wifi? For a desktop sure, but for a portable the use of an adapter by some is more reasonable than inflicting the pain on everyone.
Go ahead... use "cheap" Thunderbolt 3 and Wifi for all your networking needs.
Now TB3 is cheap? :eyeroll:
Are you not able to read sarcasm from others? He put "cheap" in scare quotes to inflect that he doesn't think TB3 is cheaper than ethernet.
How does that make sense when TB is less expensive than 10GigE and with faster speeds? You can buy entire TB3 docks at the cost of this one adapter, hence my query about the stagnation on GigE and 10GigE's price issue.
Instead of some people getting defensive, answering the question as to why 10GigE still costs so much and hasn't grown with anything resembling the history of Ethernet would be appreciated? Why anyone thinks that's an offensive question to ponder is beyond me, but it has clearly struck a chord with some people that think the topic is off limits.
It's not offensive. It's just that it's a weird question. Wired ethernet (what eventually became 802.3) has never really been a consumer-driven standard. It started out as simply a way for computers to talk to each other across long distances at a time when only radio signals (short distance communication) and telephone networks (human voice communication) existed. The idea of every person having a computer was still very much a far-off fantasy at the time, so the only thing driving it was an academic need and human curiosity (well, the military was also interested). Eventually, when personal computers became common, it became a standard for communication between personal computers, printers, etc. Mostly because there weren't any other standards at the time. But it rarely has been driven by any specific consumer need.
Whereas standards like SCSI, Firewire, USB, and Thunderbolt were created out of direct consumer needs/commercial products. And they evolved to meet those very specific needs.
So anyways, it still very much has its uses, even if those just don't happen to align with current consumer trends.
Instead of some people getting defensive, answering the question as to why 10GigE still costs so much and hasn't grown with anything resembling the history of Ethernet would be appreciated? Why anyone thinks that's an offensive question to ponder is beyond me, but it has clearly struck a chord with some people that think the topic is off limits.
It's not offensive. It's just that it's a weird question. Wired ethernet (what eventually became 802.3) has never really been a consumer-driven standard. It started out as simply a way for computers to talk to each other across long distances at a time when only radio signals (short distance communication) and telephone networks (human voice communication) existed. The idea of every person having a computer was still very much a far-off fantasy at the time, so the only thing driving it was an academic need and human curiosity. Eventually, when personal computers became common, it became a standard for communication between personal computers, printers, etc. Mostly because there weren't any other standards at the time. But it rarely has been driven by any specific consumer need.
Whereas standards like SCSI, Firewire, USB, and Thunderbolt were created out of direct consumer needs/commercial products. And they evolved to meet those very specific needs.
So anyways, it still very much has it's uses, even if those just don't happen to align with current consumer trends.
Well let's look solely on large corporations then. Why did Ethernet increase in performance and lower in price within a typical timeline and reasonable manner for everything up to GigE, but not 10GigE? The prices and size of the HW has not stepped the way the rest of Ethernet has. Technology typically follows a pattern and when it doesn't there are reasons for that.
For example, there are reasons why FireWire stagnated and eventually failed* as a standard. These reasons involve the technology hitting a technological brick wall, other technologies advancing more rapidly for a similar space, cost of HW, bad licensing policies on Apple's part, and politics. I think DED has written about it a few times here. As an aside, TB has been deemed another FireWire despite all the major issues with FW not being the same as TB. TB still has an issues with it being tied to specific Intel chips, but that's ubiquitous enough for now that it's not an issue.
* To reiterate, again, I've never once suggested that Ethernet is failing.
Instead of some people getting defensive, answering the question as to why 10GigE still costs so much and hasn't grown with anything resembling the history of Ethernet would be appreciated?
Yours seems an odd question or interest, considering 10GbE is a technology point, just like Thunderbolt 2 is a technology point. You could just as well ask, why hasn't Thunderbolt 2 evolved and cost (significantly) less? 10GbE has come down a lot in price., and you even pointed out 40GbE over copper is available now, which totally out-classes 10GbE. That's Thunderbolt 3 speed... but I don't think you'll find a Thunderbolt 3 solution (using copper or fiber) that runs 40Gb/s over distances longer than 1 meter.
Instead of some people getting defensive, answering the question as to why 10GigE still costs so much and hasn't grown with anything resembling the history of Ethernet would be appreciated? Why anyone thinks that's an offensive question to ponder is beyond me, but it has clearly struck a chord with some people that think the topic is off limits.
It's not offensive. It's just that it's a weird question. Wired ethernet (what eventually became 802.3) has never really been a consumer-driven standard. It started out as simply a way for computers to talk to each other across long distances at a time when only radio signals (short distance communication) and telephone networks (human voice communication) existed. The idea of every person having a computer was still very much a far-off fantasy at the time, so the only thing driving it was an academic need and human curiosity. Eventually, when personal computers became common, it became a standard for communication between personal computers, printers, etc. Mostly because there weren't any other standards at the time. But it rarely has been driven by any specific consumer need.
Whereas standards like SCSI, Firewire, USB, and Thunderbolt were created out of direct consumer needs/commercial products. And they evolved to meet those very specific needs.
So anyways, it still very much has it's uses, even if those just don't happen to align with current consumer trends.
Well let's look solely on large corporations then. Why did Ethernet increase in performance and lower in price within a typical timeline and reasonable manner for everything up to GigE, but not 10GigE? The prices and size of the HW has not stepped the way the rest of Ethernet has. Technology typically follows a pattern and when it doesn't there are reasons for that.
Because GigE is good enough for most business networks. Heck, I remember it took a long time for many businesses to switch their networks from 100Mbps to Gigabit because even 100Mbps was good enough for many at the time (and still is for some). The need for 10GigE is quite niche right now -- typically businesses like media creation companies who are working with large files. And any company whose sole business is large scale data transfer (ISPs, cloud services, content delivery, etc) was already using it a long time ago. The market just isn't that large for it right now. Sure people will always take more bandwidth if you give it to them, but they'll only pay more for it (pay to upgrade their infrastructure) if they see value in it.
10GigE is a head scratcher, to me. It’s slower than both USB and WiFi, by costa more and is much bulkier, despite GigE being a longstanding standard that faster than both for a very long time.
I’d love for my wired Macs and wired NAS to have a 10GigE connection but I’m not even sure that’s a feasible option for consumer-grade equipment.
Is there a reason for that?
No. 10 GigE is stupid and no-one uses it. Stick to USB. It's awesome.
Go ahead... use "cheap" Thunderbolt 3 and Wifi for all your networking needs.
Now TB3 is cheap? :eyeroll:
Are you not able to read sarcasm from others? He put "cheap" in scare quotes to inflect that he doesn't think TB3 is cheaper than ethernet.
How does that make sense when TB is less expensive than 10GigE and with faster speeds?
TB isn't less expensive if I had to run 16 TB cables at an average of, say, 50ft per cable to build out my home network infrastructure with it.
What comment do you think that I made that said anything about cable lengths? By that measure why not just change the conversation to under ocean runs and claim that Ethernet isn’t cost effective to be used anywhere because erbium doped fiber is cheaper and faster, when talking about the cost of this adapter and the progress of 10GigE.
Why be so weirdly defensive about Ethernet when not one comment has disparaged Ethernet as a ubiquitous standard? You’d think I was talking about your mother. You’re momma so fat her binaries support multiple architectures.
Instead of some people getting defensive, answering the question as to why 10GigE still costs so much and hasn't grown with anything resembling the history of Ethernet would be appreciated?
Yours seems an odd question or interest, considering 10GbE is a technology point, just like Thunderbolt 2 is a technology point. You could just as well ask, why hasn't Thunderbolt 2 evolved and cost (significantly) less? 10GbE has come down a lot in price., and you even pointed out 40GbE over copper is available now, which totally out-classes 10GbE. That's Thunderbolt 3 speed... but I don't think you'll find a Thunderbolt 3 solution (using copper or fiber) that runs 40Gb/s over distances longer than 1 meter.
Um, it has. TB2 devices have dropped significantly in price, just as TB1 before it, and TB3 is the standard. TB has also evolved very quickly in a short amount of time. It's even moved from mDP to USB-C as a port interface standard, which, along with royalty-free licensing as of this year, is helping drive its adoption and success.
It will eventually reach its own growth ceiling and stumbling blocks* like other networking technologies, and if the reasons aren't clear like with most dead communication standards I'm sure I'll be asking the same question just as I'm sure you'll be making the same excuses without ever answering the question.
* It already had stumbling blocks early on with the USB-IF not allowing it to piggyback onto USB-A/3.0.
Go ahead... use "cheap" Thunderbolt 3 and Wifi for all your networking needs.
Now TB3 is cheap? :eyeroll:
Are you not able to read sarcasm from others? He put "cheap" in scare quotes to inflect that he doesn't think TB3 is cheaper than ethernet.
How does that make sense when TB is less expensive than 10GigE and with faster speeds?
TB isn't less expensive if I had to run 16 TB cables at an average of, say, 50ft per cable to build out my home network infrastructure with it.
What comment do you think that I made that said anything about cable lengths? By that measure why not just change the conversation to under ocean runs and claim that Ethernet isn’t cost effective to be used anywhere because erbium doped fiber is cheaper and faster, when talking about the cost of this adapter and the progress of 10GigE.
You made a blanket statement saying TB was less expensive than 10GigE, and I pointed out a real-world scenario where it isn't.
Why be so weirdly defensive about Ethernet when not one comment has disparaged Ethernet as a ubiquitous standard? You’d think I was talking about your mother. You’re momma so fat her binaries support multiple architectures.
I'm simply pointing out that each technology has its uses/applications in an attempt to dispel all the reactionary discussion around TB/USB vs 10GigE.
Go ahead... use "cheap" Thunderbolt 3 and Wifi for all your networking needs.
Now TB3 is cheap? :eyeroll:
Are you not able to read sarcasm from others? He put "cheap" in scare quotes to inflect that he doesn't think TB3 is cheaper than ethernet.
How does that make sense when TB is less expensive than 10GigE and with faster speeds?
TB isn't less expensive if I had to run 16 TB cables at an average of, say, 50ft per cable to build out my home network infrastructure with it.
What comment do you think that I made that said anything about cable lengths? By that measure why not just change the conversation to under ocean runs and claim that Ethernet isn’t cost effective to be used anywhere because erbium doped fiber is cheaper and faster, when talking about the cost of this adapter and the progress of 10GigE.
You made a blanket statement saying TB was less expensive than 10GigE, and I pointed out a real-world scenario where it isn't.
And I also referenced TB3 docks compared to this one adapter right after that.
I'm simply pointing out that each technology has its uses/applications in an attempt to dispel all the reactionary discussion around TB/USB vs 10GigE.
Where was it ever stated that each technology doesn't have its uses/applications? In fact, my entire point was about the uses and applications for which you (and others) have made defensive statements about how it's unimportant to "it's stupid and no-one uses it" when I stated that I'd like to know why the price barrier hasn't come down and its utility become adopted more readily because I find it important. You almost understand what I was getting at with your "good enough" comment: "Heck, I remember it took a long time for many businesses to switch their networks from 100Mbps to Gigabit because even 100Mbps was good enough for many at the time (and still is for some)."
I'm simply pointing out that each technology has its uses/applications in an attempt to dispel all the reactionary discussion around TB/USB vs 10GigE.
Where was it ever stated that each technology doesn't have its uses/applications? In fact, my entire point was about the uses and applications for which you (and others) have made defensive statements about how it's unimportant to "it's stupid and no-one uses it"
And you're confusing me with others. I never stated that TB is unimportant at all. And that's exactly the reactionary USB vs 10GigE comment I was talking about.
when I stated that I'd like to know why the price barrier hasn't come down and its utility become adopted more readily because I find it important. You almost understand what I was getting at with your "good enough" comment: "Heck, I remember it took a long time for many businesses to switch their networks from 100Mbps to Gigabit because even 100Mbps was good enough for many at the time (and still is for some)."
And TB will hit the same wall in regard to how much bandwidth the average consumer needs for peripherals (the main use for TB). It doesn't mean the technology will become any less important, it just means that any further bandwidth increases will be for niche markets (and thus the cost for moving to the newer version will be expensive).
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PS: You've really done a lot of beackbending to try to defend why Ethernet isn't for consumers just because I questioned how all the other standards stepped nicely and 10GigE hit a brick wall. I doubt you have any investment here so your motivation to make false claims without ever explaining why it's still so expensive while other technologies have increased in performance while dropping in cost per bit (which includes Ethernet up to GigE will likely forever remain a mystery.
You need to evolve your definition of how a digital telecommunications network is defined.
Being the default doesn't mean it's not stagnating. If you look at the timelines for Ethernet speed increases for consumer devices you can really say it's moving along just as quickly as its ever been? No. No you can't. The iPod was the default PMP as it was literally dying and I haven't used that word with Ethernet. I just said it had stagnated on GigE.
Instead of some people getting defensive, answering the question as to why 10GigE still costs so much and hasn't grown with anything resembling the history of Ethernet would be appreciated? Why anyone thinks that's an offensive question to ponder is beyond me, but it has clearly struck a chord with some people that think the topic is off limits.
There are a few reasons why it's in many devices, and why it's now being replaced by WiFi. Ethernet has been the defacto standard for connecting many (and varied) devices to the Internet for a long time now. It's also very simple and cheap to add an Ethernet port to any device. But since wireless networking is now ubiquitous, and the average consumer's Internet connection bandwidth isn't anywhere near what Ethernet provides, wired Ethernet no longer makes a lot of sense for the vast majority of consumers as a the way to give a device access to the Internet.
And for use-cases where consumers do need a lot of bandwidth, like backups and whatnot, it's much easier to just use a direct device-to-device cable like USB or TB since they can just keep it connected on their desk or walk over to the computer and connect it. As opposed to setting up the infrastructure required for Ethernet.
This is why I'm saying that wired Ethernet, these days, is mainly useful for long runs over large buildings with many connected devices. There are simpler solutions for consumer use cases. But wired Ethernet isn't going anywhere as a standard, as you seem to believe just because the average consumer use-case isn't there anymore.
Whereas standards like SCSI, Firewire, USB, and Thunderbolt were created out of direct consumer needs/commercial products. And they evolved to meet those very specific needs.
So anyways, it still very much has its uses, even if those just don't happen to align with current consumer trends.
For example, there are reasons why FireWire stagnated and eventually failed* as a standard. These reasons involve the technology hitting a technological brick wall, other technologies advancing more rapidly for a similar space, cost of HW, bad licensing policies on Apple's part, and politics. I think DED has written about it a few times here. As an aside, TB has been deemed another FireWire despite all the major issues with FW not being the same as TB. TB still has an issues with it being tied to specific Intel chips, but that's ubiquitous enough for now that it's not an issue.
* To reiterate, again, I've never once suggested that Ethernet is failing.
TB isn't less expensive if I had to run 16 TB cables at an average of, say, 50ft per cable to build out my home network infrastructure with it.
http://www.avlgear.com/optical-cables-by-corning-20-meter-thunderbolt-cable-mini-displayport-computer-device-connect-cable-20m
Why be so weirdly defensive about Ethernet when not one comment has disparaged Ethernet as a ubiquitous standard? You’d think I was talking about your mother. You’re momma so fat her binaries support multiple architectures.
It will eventually reach its own growth ceiling and stumbling blocks* like other networking technologies, and if the reasons aren't clear like with most dead communication standards I'm sure I'll be asking the same question just as I'm sure you'll be making the same excuses without ever answering the question.
* It already had stumbling blocks early on with the USB-IF not allowing it to piggyback onto USB-A/3.0.
I'm simply pointing out that each technology has its uses/applications in an attempt to dispel all the reactionary discussion around TB/USB vs 10GigE.
Where was it ever stated that each technology doesn't have its uses/applications? In fact, my entire point was about the uses and applications for which you (and others) have made defensive statements about how it's unimportant to "it's stupid and no-one uses it" when I stated that I'd like to know why the price barrier hasn't come down and its utility become adopted more readily because I find it important. You almost understand what I was getting at with your "good enough" comment: "Heck, I remember it took a long time for many businesses to switch their networks from 100Mbps to Gigabit because even 100Mbps was good enough for many at the time (and still is for some)."
And TB will hit the same wall in regard to how much bandwidth the average consumer needs for peripherals (the main use for TB). It doesn't mean the technology will become any less important, it just means that any further bandwidth increases will be for niche markets (and thus the cost for moving to the newer version will be expensive).