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3Com's 10/100 Switching... Wallplate
An anonymous reader wrote in to say "Tom's hardware has an exclusive review of the new 3Com Network Jack. This is a 4-port 10/100 switch that fits in a standard-sized wallplate." Alright, thats a good idea (he says while accidentally kicking the switch hidden under his desk). Having run more then my share of ethernet drops in the past, I gotta say I dig this idea.
Honey! Can I change my Christmas list from socks to a 4-port wall...
Huh?
Oh, it's so you can connect four computers in one location.
Yeah....yeah....
But...
Someday the dog might need an Ethernet port, too.
Oh, whatever! Get me the damned tie then!
Women! Grrrr....
- Bill
the above is my personal opinion and does not necessarily reflect that of the little voices in my head
I got an offer in the mail for a free one of these. Just gotta fill out a survey at http://www.3com.com/customer_first (no html link because I'm lazy). Of course you need a customer code on the post card. *grin*
Will it protect it from the wierd guy in networking that once shorted out the phone system while rewiring his ethernet port because he decided it was too slow for his everquest games? Is it armored to protect it from the REALLY wierd guy from R & D that was running around the comms room with a broadsword?
(The really sad part is, I'm not kidding. I actually work with these people.)
*prepares new resume*
I am !amused.
And when did I finish re-wiring my house ? 2 months ago.
They did this on purpose didn't they ? Its just to annoy me I can tell, its a personal thing, well I'm going to take it like a man and blub in the corner.
Great idea, would have been perfect rather than the mini hubs or manual wiring jobs I had to use.
Bugger. I'll get them for this, just you see if I don't
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Haivng a technically minded guy around is great..:) :)
:)
The wall-ports at my work each have 6 ethernet connections, one BNC, and two telephone jacks.
6 you may ask? Well, since ethernet only uses four of the eight wires in the cat5 cable, so you can send two connections down one cable (and out one wall jack), although you need a splitter cable (easy to make) if you want to get the second connection out of it of course
Then, all the ports are wired up via the walls to a central switchboard where you can use short pieces of cable to connect the network any way you like. It's brilliant
A hub built into a wall switch! That's amazing! At the rate things are going, someone is going to invent a network card that doesn't even NEED cables, and this thing will be obsolete! Maybe it could use RADIO WAVES!
If guns kill people, then CmdrTaco's keyboard misspells words.
...anyone else notice how bad their switches suck? We've run into problems where even cards manufactured by 3com will not work with their 10/100 switches. I wouldn't trust something like this in my data center or in my bedroom walls...
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
People who are going to install ethernet switches will probably cable it themselves and put in a regular old switch, and not need this 'gee whiz' switch. Others will opt for home PNA or 802.11 solutions.
I don't see them selling a whole bunch of these. Other than the 'gee whiz' factor they aren't any more useful than a regular switch/hub.
this sounds pretty cool for some applications - particularly if you have a number of boxen in one corner of a room or something.
Personally (and I don't know if this is similar to any other experiences), my gear is more spread out...that is, I rarely ever keep more than one ethernet-enabled device in one area of a room. I can see this being a really nice implementation for offices where a group of workstations are arranged close to one another, but other than that, there aren't many practical applications for the home. I'll probably stick to using a 24-port switch in the closet, and various single- and dual-port wall plates throughout the house.
This is pointless. It's a $399 four-port hub. And where is the flexibility? Hmm? At my office we ran 4-Cat5 ports to ever cubicle. That means that at the patch panel, if someone needs three network ports, cool. If someone needs two network ports, and two analog modem lines, cool. If I want to put a dumb terminal on my desk and patch it to my serial port in the server room, cool. No problem. Sooooo much flexibility.
This gives you nothing, and unless you want to buy some expensive power over ethernet equipment you still have a power cable going from the wall to this socket. Anyone who claims this is useful is full of themselves! Concerned about a mess of cables under the desk? Excuse me but if you have a need for four Cat-5 connections at one desk, I'm assuming four computers. That means that you have a mess to start with. What is a four port hub thrown into the mix?
This device is the logical equivalent to saying, "Instead of using surge protectors at every desk, we shall install 8 power slots in a straight row in such a configuration that a power block (for say a printer) doesn't take up three slots."
Then you have troubleshooting. It is a lot easier to use cable testing equipment and knowing that if one of the four cat-5 cables between the patch pannel and the office magically goes out, at least we have three. If this little thing goes out, we are talking DOWN TIME until you can replace the part (might be minutes instead of just seconds like now). Any arguments?
AS a person who just bought a new house (Ok old house, but new to me... I never lived there before) running 2-cat5e,cat3,2-RG6 cables to each outlet plate (I.E. 2 locations to each room) is not difficult by any means. Anyone can go to home-depot and buy all the parts and tools needed (Note: dont waste your money on RG6Quad shield, it offer's you nothing) to completely wire your home, in 1 weekend ALONE. no other perosn helping to pull cable. My 6 foot long drill-bit has a hole in the tip so I can drill down, wander downstairs, tie the wire on and pull it back.
The trick is to plan your needs. the entertainment wall needs more ethernet than the bathroom (Kidding! you use wireless in there) and your office location needs even more than that.
It's cheaper than buying several of these "switches" and gives you better lan-topology in your home.
If I was retrofiting an existing-wired-house and didnt want to ttake the time to do it right? Sure! but I love using my rotozip to cut holes in walls and pulling wires through rafters.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
As other people have mentioned, this won't work for gig e, so if you ever want to upgrade in the future, you get to rewire.
I'm sure the people who regularly mix the two up aren't exactly the target market that 3COM is shooting for with this product...
until the painters arrive and ruin your $300 ethernet "jacks".
I guess no ones has noticed the obvious down side is that instead of having multiple dedicated 100Mb runs to a cube, now all the devices are going to share just one link.
Sure, not many apps will use all 100 Mb, but that is certainly something to think about.
--crotherm
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable" - JFK
Have you ever been reading an article and for no reason what so ever the server grinds to a halt? Pictures don't come up, "page can not be found" errors, and then it hits you like a ton of bricks, I bet this just made Slashdot. You click the link at the top of the your browser ( you do have a Slashdot link? Don't you?) and BAM there it is? Well that just happened to me and now I can't finish the article so suck it!
Does anyone actually have a Java program designed to control air traffic, or for the operation of a nuclear facility?
This thing would be excellent for a certain type of home office... if only it were about $70 instead. I have four computers at home: one for my fun, one for my work, one for my wife and kids, and a laptop. Honestly, I'd love the convenience of having the switch in the wall. Why is it convenience? Because then I can more easily hide all my wires. Its not a big deal, but still, it would be nice. What would make it nicer is if you could have multiple of these talking to each other wirelessly (e.g. via 802.11b). Then just stick one in each room, and voila, no wiring hassel, just plug in and enjoy.
Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
A whole wall panel for so little. What I would like is a glorified patch cable, with two bisexual ends. Find a socket that seems to have some working equipment connected to it, disconnect, plug your cable in, and reconnect what ever it was. Plug the other end in your laptop, and also there is a free end for the next guy and his laptop. Enough "intelligence" to handle 10/100Mbit conversions in all four directions, so it makes what ever old/new equipmen fit what ever old/new network, and to adapt to the needs of straight/crossed cabling if both ends turn out to be hubs or PCs. Preferably no power needed, eating a few electrons from the signal wires, or at least a built-in battery for the next zillion years... Price wouldn't matter, as long as most everyone could afford one... Is this really too much to ask?
In Murphy We Turst
The obvious solution is to run the power cable behind the wall -- so that you can install this device designed to avoid having to run cable behind the wall.
Well, not exactly. But if you are installing this in cubes at an office, I can see that happening qutie a bit.
"The guide is definitive, reality is frequently inaccurate."
New Slashdot poll:
Paypal accidently dumped $400 into your account...
1) Four port wall mounted hub
2) ipod with all the hacked drivers
3) ten Oreilly books of your choice plus a free copy of Learning "Spelling" 2002
4) Limted edition Drivers License collection on CD-ROM or DVD
5) A night with Cowboy Neal
A lot of these replies talk about how this device is useless and they would rather just buy a regular 4-port switch. I see your point but I don't think 3Com cares if you buy this to wire your home. The article mentions working closely with cubicle manufacturers. If you work in a cube farm (and I do) you can immediately see how 3Com can make a lot of money from these.
Step1: 3Com gets cubicle companies to build these into cubes.
Step2: Cubicle companies build these switches into their cubes becuase they will have a nifty new feature to use in selling their cubes.
Step3: Large companies like mine buy new cubes for slightly higher price to get this nifty must have feature.
This seems clear to me....But my mind might be fuzzy from staring at this grey cube wall all day.
-- Find the Truth...
Some people here are saying things like "why not just do 2 or more runs in the first place?" To that I say that if you're wiring up 50 work areas and you have the premise wiring folks already on site, go for it; it's only slightly more expensive to have them run multiple cables.
But what happens when you have a single location that needs more Ethernet? That's the target market here. Instead of getting the premise wiring guys back on site to haul more cable, you just use this jack to fan-out more ports. Conventionally this is done using those little desktop mini-hubs, but putting it inside the wallbox instead of on the desk (or worse, on the floor beneath the desk) makes it neater and more difficult to break.
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I don't have my O'Reilly ethernet book handy... but isn't there a limitation with the number of switches that you can cross in a network? If you had one of these at both ends, that could be two unecessary switches to consider when laying out the office back-bone.
i don't think you're a troll, but i don't think that most jacks would have all four ports maxxed out at the same time.
THERE IS NO DATA. THERE IS O
And you use this for WHAT in the server room besides scaring the crap out of the guy wiring up the phone line for the new fax machine...?
---------------------------------------
Rotate the pod, please, HAL....
If you would have read the article, its because this is easier to maintain than a stand alone switch. Running 4 lines isn't always the best idea because of cost of each line, as the article points out a lot of networking groups charge PER cable, not per pull.
This thing provides:
Little to no maintainence.
Reduces cost of cables pulled to office
Reduces clutter in ceiling
Relatively low cost for high quality manufacturer
My company, and every other company I've associated with over 25 employees don't have a lot of SMC or Netgear crap lying around. With experience as a network admin, I can say I'd much rather spend a few extra bucks on this than have one of those things sitting out where the user can fsck with it.
Companies will buy tons of these.
I wonder where Tom got the numbers for the cost comparison? He has cable pulling at $300+ for each run, I pay about $120. If his cable puller is charging him quad for four wires he needs a new cable puller. It ain't rocket science. He has upstream switch ports at $90ea! I'm paying $25 each. Then he has the mystical `gigabit switch port' row.
The maintanence/year row implies that the maintanence cost of the 3com device is zero. I would rather have something like "15% of cost"/year for it. I don't have many 4 year old hubs that haven't either died or got some blown ports. Lots of lightning around here. Its especially hard on hubs and NICs because of the ground surge differential on close strikes.
I see no indication of either the extra cost for powered ethernet devices or the electrical work to power the 3com devices.
The traditional wiring is costed for the worst case, where 4 ports are really active. Needing 4 ports available everywhere is not the same as needing 4 ports active everywhere. I routinely run four times the copper that I will need and activate ports as needed.
An even better comparison would have been to compare the 3com wall jack hub to a free standing hub. But then the 3com would not have looked so good.
It's a shame 3com didn't have these during the dotcom boom. They could have sold dumptruck loads of them. Now? I doubt it.
One item that I did not see addressed is whether or not it passes on the 802.3af Power Over Ethernet to the devices attached to the switch. Some of my customers use IP Phones, and this would be extra-sweet for them (the company won't authorize purchase of 802.3af power sources for the phones, but they might use these jacks when they move their offices...).
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
The butler did it.
J/K
The switch works a bit better that the SMC 4 port that the reviever was using as a basis of comparison. Bottom line, if you like the form factor, and think that justifies the price increase, go for it.
I dislike the idea of replacing or supplimenting workgroup switches with these wall plate things. Does this switch support 802.1Q or 802.1D and things of that nature? Can software upgrades be preformed on these things? Is the thing manageable at all? If not, port-based VLANs are out the window. Switching off a port for security reasons is also out the window. Basic administrative tasks could be greatly inhibited or prohibited if this device has little managment capabilities or none at all. I see people jumping at this idea and embracing it as the next great thing. They did this to 802.11B too. These are also the type of people think wireless is a replace for a wired connection. It is not a replacement for a wired connection. It's convienent for laptops, kioks, printers in odd places, dynamically changing rooms like temporary cubical farms, and PDA access. It can not replace a wired connection for a desktop. So many basic network administrative tasks are inhibited by wireless connections. Most people don't realize it because the extent of their networking ability is buying a 4 port hub and plugging in purchased cables. Perhaps they know how use a crimper and can pull a little wire between rooms. They still don't do the network tasks that a network admin like myself have to do. They just see it as a easier way to connect things together. bad bad bad
Often times, AFTER all the wire is pulled, our clients will decide that they actually want 4 ports out of a wall plate instead of 2, AND they DON'T want a local Hub/Switch that takes up room. This would be a quick, neat and tidy solution for just those situations - IF it works well, we'll probably sell about 1 a month.
Never never never smoke crack before geometry class!
Ahhh... I never thought I'd see the day when the RJ11 phone jack is the "Legacy Voice" jack!
This looks pretty sweet... I hope my next apartment comes pre-wired. =)
True, but the range on that is quite a bit shorter, and requires special hardware, not a generic 802.11b card picked up at the local computer shop.
J.J.
Wasn't clear to you? It might help to read the acual[sic] comment once in a while.
:-)
I'll be more clear. Basically no one has powered ethernet in their closets today, so you either have to buy the 3com power adding device mentioned in the article or replace all your ports with power supplying ports. For new build outs I presuming that powered port devices are more expensive than non-powered.
At least one of the comparisons THG ran on the switches is completely useless.
Isn't it great that both of the switches can ping with 100 bytes of data at 1ms?
Wonder why it was always the same?
The ping included with MS OS's AFAIK can only report times equal or greater than 1ms. This is a great troubleshooter when you are pinging MIT from California but if you are pinging across just one switch, a 1ms time is horrible.
I get a 456us (.456ms) ping time, using 100 bytes, across an ancient 10Mbit HUB!!!
Of course I am using ping from iputils-20001110. This is not a MS bashing post, only a wish that THG would use meaningful tests sometimes.
I wish I had one of these last summer. I was helping my college's tech depatment wire some classrooms and I spent way too much time under desks with a punch-down tool.
Considering where it's located though, it would probably be cheaper and easier if it was just an unpowered hub instead of a switch. A cubicle with around four devices doesn't really need it's own switch.
This product is a 10/100 ethernet switch. A completely different animal.
You can now use a single faceplate with a single FastEthernet run back to your core switch to provide switched 10 or 100Mbps connectivity to multiple hosts, and they cannot see each others traffic.
I'm not sure if it's worth several hundred bucks, but it is a neat idea.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
But the original suggestion was to run only one cable in the wall and not put the hub/switch on the floor. With this solution, your core switch would stay just as small. Your suggestion has them running four cables again, and this is still inconsistant with the other ways in which the switch is evaluated in the review, against other 4-port switches.
Of course, the bottom line for the target customers (businesses), having a tidier appearance can be worth more than the money saved by using a standalone switch.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
I've never been fond of leaving open ports around (security issues) and these things just spread the lovin' a bit too much. It wouldn't be such a problem if my Coms folks could turn off officially unused ports, identify what is plugged into each used port, collect traffic rates, etc. Heck it'd be great if the HelpDesk folks could remote the box and see if something is plugged into #3 and what speed is it, is it showing green.
I'd also be worried about the day everything bursty goes at once and that too-kewl VOIP gets starved. I really don't care if the printer gets stuck at some low packet rate but I do care about other types and some built-in QoS support (even if depending on 3Com hardware at the other end) would be useful.
Mebbe in Rev. B.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
When you put ethernet and phone in the same cable, you may not notice problems initially. But when the phone rings there'll be a 100V signal on the phone line. That doesn't sound good to me.
Try doing a file transfer and ringing that phone at the same time.
That said even if there were problems most people won't really notice (Internet B/W itself isn't that reliable ).
Cheerio,
Link.
Ah. I sense much Dictionary in you.
:) ).
Dictionary leads to spelling. Spelling leads to grammar.
And grammar leads to pain (when reading Slashdot
Link.
Why a switch is often better than a hub:
A hub is basically passive. All of the ports have to be running the same speed. A switch is active. Each port is handled independently, so you can mix 10 Mbps and 100 Mbps devices.
While a lot of newer stuff is 100 Mbps, there's still a lot of 10 Mbps kit out there, so a switch lets you migrate as you please.
WTF was this alleged "computer geek" smoking??
The article states:
"The NJ100 also includes a connect light, as well as a power light on the jack plate itself. Both lights are small and don't blink. This is good, because you don't want something neon bright blinking under your users' desks."
Says who? Hell YES we want stuff blinking! Doesn't this fool realize that the more blinkylites you have, the cooler you are?
LITES = NETWORK PERFORMANCE!
BLINKY = PERFORMANCE!
BLINKYLITES = BIG PERFORMANCE!
*shakes head* It's so simple....
You might say, that you can save on the number of 24+ port things you need. Well, there is more to the 24+ port switch then just 24+ ports. They support other things like management stuff, etc etc. Stuff you won't get with the integrated wall plate.
Also you'd typically expect that the bigger the switch the lower the cost per port.
Also if someone has 4 ports back to a rack mounted switch they in effect have 4x100M bandwidth with this system them have 1X100M bandwidth. If their 4 bits of kit generally just talk amongst themselves this is less of an issue than if they all need to access the rest of the network.
lighten up guy, the economy is soft, and lots of guys are out of work from the dotBombs, so what wrong with showing management that even if they out-source some work, your still the one that they need to make it work?
I'd consider it a job security aid
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
but Tom is crazy if he thinks that it costs that much money to do cable work. Someone let him know that the over inflated dot-bomb era is over and people don't charge $250/hr for $100/hr work,
If they think they can get away with it they most certainly will...
How much current can I draw through Cat 5? I assume all NICs are isolated against DC, but I'm interested as to how much power I can actually draw though the Ethernet cable itself.
Power is a function of voltage and current. Voltage is restricted by the insulation, current by the cross sectional area of the conductor. Typically NICS do not connect pins 4,5,7 & 8 some don't even have the conductors physically present in the socket. POE schemes tend to use 4&5 in parallel for -ve, 7&8 in parallel for +ve. 12V is limited to about 30m, A longer distance would need a higher voltage, but only if the other end could can cope with it or you install a 12v regulator at the remote end.
IANS (I Am Not Sure) but aren't electrical wires behind the wall somewhat fire resistant? This is to stop them becoming conduits for fire to other floors (imagine a plastic-coated wire that caught on fire. It would quickly burn up the inside of the wall to the next floor. Not so good.)
So, are there fire resistant network cables? Are they available for the home user? Do these wall plate packages warn about this and to not just run standard across-the-floor cable?
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
While installing some equipment in the cold room, a contractor drilled throught the concrete floor, and cut a high tension support cable for the whole building (one running from diagonal corner to corner). You could hear it recoiling under the building (TWANGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!) and after going outside, a small chunk of concrete on the corner had been blasted off.
Apparently, it was only one or two cable making up a larger sheath of cable supports, so it wasn't catastrophic (or even crucial). But the building owner was there, nervously supervising, at the time. I still have never seen anyone with that combination of looks on their face...
"It's overkill, of course. But you can never have too much overkill." - Anonymous Slashdot Coward
Of course they can't intrude, but who needs to when they can read off all those passwords you sent in the clear over your "secure" _wired_ network.
What passwords in the clear? That's what ssh is for. Security is a reletive term. Actual cat-5 is reletivly more secure than wireless.
With cat-5, someone would have to want your data very badly. Contrary to most people's thinking, the odds are that your data is valuable only to you. With wireless, especially badly done wireless (there's a lot of that going around), all it takes is an inexpensive card and a laptop. It lowers the barrier enough that kids will listen in just for the fun of doing something you don't want them to do. They'll also probably enjoy the free connectivity you provide to your parking lot.