I know 100 GbE for consumers is a long way away, even 10 GbE has barely taken hold.
But I like to think ahead and imagine what 100 gigabit networking will look like in the consumer space. Currently there is no 100 gigabit over twisted pair standard, it's either fiber or twinaxial (the latter only for 5m). Clearly twisted pair is what is used in the consumer space.
So that got me wondering, do you think it would even be possible to do 100 gigabit over twisted pair for 100m? Or even 30m? Or will it require so much shielding and larger gauge wires as to be impractical.
I'm leaning toward no. I think when 100 gigabit consumer products become available in 5-10 years, they'll just standardize one of the the current enterprise multimode fiber standards (OM3 or OM4), maybe give the cables some extra "shielding" to make them more rigid and consumer-friendly, pick and integrate a transceiver standard/plug into consumer NICs and we'll just have Ethernet over fiber coexisting with RJ45 plugs in the consumer space. Kind of like USB-A and USB-C. It'll be interesting to see how they market it.
Anyway, that's what I'm thinking. Maybe I'm wrong and they can do it over twisted pair. They can already do 40 gigabit over 30 m, but I have a sense that's the limit of twisted pair, it also uses a lot more power at these bandwidths. Maybe twinaxial could do 100 meters, but that seems highly impractical for the consumer space.
What do you think?
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