Comments: One connector to rule them all

You could make a better case for either USB or firewire than for ethernet, what with the power supply thing.

Posted by russell at November 10, 2003 01:44 PM

Easily overlooked in this argument is the EXCELLENT case it makes for a new entertainment cabinet. one cabinet to rule them all.....

Posted by meredith at November 11, 2003 03:25 PM

But both USB and Firewire have other, more serious, limitations. USB needs a single host (PC), and doesn't allow multiple hosts. In the model of trying to connect A/V appliances together, which one is the host? That seems like a fatal flaw for using USB for this kind of application. USB is also slower than Gigabit Ethernet, can support only 127 devices on a chain, and (another big problem) can't have a cable length greater than 5 meters.

Firewire doesn't have the idea of PC/peripheral like USB does, so hooking multiple PCs together is easy, but it's still slower than Gigabit Ethernet, and is limited to just 63 devices on a chain.

It seems like it's probably easier to add power to Ethernet than it is to solve the connectivity problems that USB and Firewire have.

But I do like the idea of a new entertainment cabinet ;)

Posted by Mike at November 11, 2003 03:40 PM

63 devices would seem sufficient to me for most homes, and FW isn't that much slower than gigabit ethernet.

On the other hand, you could certainly allocate the 4/5 no-connect pair of an ethernet connection to power...

Posted by russell at November 12, 2003 10:00 AM

http://www.hyperlinktech.com/web/bt_cat5_p1.php

Posted by russell at November 12, 2003 10:01 AM

Yikes. Such very subversive comments.

In one fell swoop you are trying to put Molex, Amphenol etc. out of business. Under your plan the gross margins of Radio Shack, Best Buy and Circuit City will fall.

This isn't about smaller traveling bags, it's about diversity and how it applies to cables and connectors.

But then again I agree with Russell. Go Firewire!

Posted by Just Al at November 13, 2003 11:10 AM

I just remembered the other example I had heard of where power and Ethernet are run in a single company: my company's wireless network deployment. When Microsoft started running a wireless network across the entire MS campus, running two cables to each access point added enough cost that Microsoft's IT group came up with a solution to run the two in a single cable.

(http://www.microsoft.com/resources/casestudies/CaseStudy.asp?CaseStudyID=13779)

And it's not my job to support the gross margins of Radio Shack. I did enough of that as an EE student in college. I'm done now. ;)

Posted by Mike at November 14, 2003 10:52 PM