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Ethernet Over Assorted Materials

Posted by timothy on from the as-long-as-the-bits-are-bits dept.

saridder writes: "Cisco has demonstrated their latest last mile technology, and not only can you now have 10 MB Ethernet over Cat3, Cat2, Cat1, try lamp power cord, battery jumper terminals, barbed wire, etc. This may have solved the last mile problem, and at 10 MB, it blows DSL out of the water."

3 of 323 comments (clear)

  1. We use it by Casca · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It actually works pretty well. We use it on a large government facility that has some really old wiring in buildings that we don't have fiber runs into.

    Has anyone heard the Cisco story about ethernet over barbed wire? Our salesrep tells a story about a facility in Kuwait (I think) that was having a terrible time keeping a link up between two buildings. The locals kept stealing the cable they were using for the valuable copper. They ended up getting ethernet to run over a piece of barbed wire running between the buildings. The error rate was high, and the sustainable throughput was abismal, but with TCP's error correction they were able to get a useful connection through.

    I don't know how true that really is, might be a Cisco myth told to impress customers or something.

    --
    Casca
  2. Yes, ethernet over barbed wire. Big deal. by Nonesuch · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Actually, ethernet over barbed wire is nothing new, going back to 1995.

    If you follow the link to Cisco's site, there is a link on the right for the video presentation.

    --

    I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
  3. LRE is not vapor, it works quite well by Falcor · · Score: 5, Interesting

    We are using LRE technology to connect approximately 50 buildings via cat 1 and cat 3 underground phone cable. LRE requires only a signle pair, and can share a pair with a voice line, just like DSL.

    Out to 3000 feet 15 megabits is normal, between 3000 and 5000 only 5 megabits is typical, but it depends on the quality of the cable.

    This technology is based on VDSL and works using the same principals, but runs at a higher data rate, limiting the distance. Also, LRE transports Ethernet frames directly, without any ATM protocol overhead, unlike most of the other DSL solutions. This greatly reduces costs.

    The Cisco 575 LRE device is much like the low-end Cisco 600 series DSL routers in appearance, but has no active layer 3 capabilities. Basically, the remote 575 port appears to the 2924LRE as if it were a local port, allowing trunking and vlan assignments as supported by the 2900 series switch.

    If you could order a number of "alarm pairs(dry copper)" from your local telco, between a friendly ISP and your houses, and the distance was less than 5000 ft., this would be a pretty economical solution. Otherwise, it's not of much use for the average homeowner.

    -Falcor