[ale] Looks like time for a new wireless router

[Solomon Peachy]

On Mon, Dec 30, 2024 at 03:48:05PM -0600, Leam Hall via Ale wrote:
> Interesting. I've never really needed high internal network speed so I 
> had no idea 10G copper was worse. What are the options and rough 
> costs? I'm not sure what the future holds, but since my wife has let 
> me buy servers before, I may need to get back to it.  :P

10G over Copper:

 * Half duplex
 * ~3W/port just to run the PHY, more for longer (>30M) runs
 * Higher-grade cabling necessary for longer runs
 * Upper limit of 330ft (like all copper ethernet)
 * 2-4us added latency
 * Transceivers are expensive (~$50ish, more for 2.5/5G capable stuff)

10G over fiber:

 * Full duplex
 * <1W/port for the PHY
 * Even the cheapest multimode fiber will get you 200M distances
 * effectively zero latency
 * Transceivers are a lot cheaper (<$15 for generic stuff)

Meanwhile, cost favors copper for short runs but for longer runs the 
curve swings decisively to fiber, especially if you need shielded, 
plenum-grade, or armored stuff.

A disadvanage of fiber is that you're almost guaranteed to need to run 
it through conduit; it's a lot less resilient to abuse.

If you need to connect things that don't share a common electrical 
ground (or live in a lightning-prone location) then the non-conductivity 
of fiber is a highly desireable property.  (For example when I was on 
DSL I isolated the modem from the rest of the network with a 1M fiber 
run)

My longest run (so far) is 100M, and that's over direct-burial-rated 
armored singlemode stuff (in a conduit) that connects my office shed to 
the main house.  fiber is overkill for the server rack but given that 
only one of the servers has a native 10G port, it was simply cheaper to 
use fiber.

 - Solomon
-- 
Solomon Peachy			      pizza at shaftnet dot org (email&xmpp)
                                      @pizza:shaftnet dot org   (matrix)
Dowling Park, FL                      speachy (libera.chat)
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