3 ms·

* Wired ethernet is now usually slower than my 802.11. 802.11ax is 0.5-10Gbps in theory, and in practice, faster than gigabit ethernet. * Fiber seems... overpr

by blagie 3y ago

* Wired ethernet is now usually slower than my 802.11. 802.11ax is 0.5-10Gbps in theory, and in practice, faster than gigabit ethernet. * Fiber seems... overpriced. I'm not quite sure why. USB TOSlink is $3 on Aliexpress, as is the cable, so there's nothing fundamentally expensive there, except for being enterprisey. A lot more interconnect would make sense to have as optical. * Wifi is increasing in speed. Wifi 8 is planned to hit 100Gbps. That's where the investment seems to be going.

rowanG077 3y ago
How is the latency and consistency on these newer WiFi standards? From my experience if you hit the sweet spot on WiFi it's very good. But then someone else starts a youtube video. Or you move your laptop. Or maybe even do nothing noticeable at all. And suddenly you have a shit experience. For this reason I have always preferred Ethernet. But I admit I have not compared the more recent WiFi standards.
- blagie 3y ago
  That's actually what's surprised me. In my home, I found wifi to work better in all respects than ethernet. This is a relatively recent phenomenon. Ethernet has issues too, at times. I've certainly seen nominal 10Gbps networks degrade to <1Gbps, and to fix that, you need to debug wires and connectors, and see where the signal integrity issue too. As speeds go up, those issues get more common. 10Mbps, you could almost literally run a pair of wires from Radio Shack and it would work. 1Gbps was the breakpoint where if I didn't use proper everything (which is often mislabelled on Amazon / Aliexpress / eBay / etc.), things would degrade. On the other hand, my wifi has a nice MIMO router. I expect that split will continue. In theory, a MIMO router with an array of antennas could be almost point-to-point, directing signals where they need to go. At the same time, as speeds go up, any parasitic cable / connector inductance or capacitance will have increasing impact.
vrighter 3y ago
toslink is a piece of junk plastic fiber and a red led. it's technically fiber optic, but can't really be compared to real fiber optic system
justinclift 3y ago
> Wired ethernet is now usually slower ... Newer wifi speeds are nifty for general consumers, but a lot of people (prosumers, small business) have moved on from 1GbE wired networking to much faster things. There's more than just 10GbE available (cheaply too if 2nd hand is ok). Wired networking also lets multiple people use the network at the full speed too, and tends to be a reliable experience. Well, more reliable than wifi anyway. ;)
- blagie 3y ago
  > Wired networking also lets multiple people use the network at the full speed too, and tends to be a reliable experience. Well, more reliable than wifi anyway. ;) In theory, MIMO and antenna arrays do too. Practice isn't quite there yet, but it's getting there.
constantcrying 3y ago
If you are suggesting to use WiFi for GPU interconnect in Datacenters you have to be insane. In general cables are much better if you can use them. The fundamental principle of EM waves is the same, but you get to decide whether these waves are inside a tight strand of material or just all around.
- blagie 3y ago
  I am not. I am responding to: "I don't have a horse in this race, but I saw today that there was a healthy thread <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40011762 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40011762> about "just pull fiber" when folks were discussing pulling cat6e and a lot of that talk was about the relative cost versus massive bandwidth gains." For home use, ethernet has increasingly moved into a hassle / performance point where I'm better off with either wifi or, if I wanted faster speed, fiber. I just wish fiber was cheaper.
  - svnt 3y ago
    Fiber is not targeted at a volume/consumer market, yet. That’s the primary reason it isn’t cheaper, but it is still pretty cheap, and has the potential to be cheaper than copper. I’m confused by your whole sentiment. They said use fiber instead of wiring for 10Gb ethernet, and you’re just agreeing but naming alternatives that underperform it? It’s not very much more expensive to get a couple fiber NICs.

by blagie 3y ago

rowanG077 3y ago

How is the latency and consistency on these newer WiFi standards? From my experience if you hit the sweet spot on WiFi it's very good. But then someone else starts a youtube video. Or you move your laptop. Or maybe even do nothing noticeable at all. And suddenly you have a shit experience. For this reason I have always preferred Ethernet. But I admit I have not compared the more recent WiFi standards.

blagie 3y ago
That's actually what's surprised me. In my home, I found wifi to work better in all respects than ethernet. This is a relatively recent phenomenon. Ethernet has issues too, at times. I've certainly seen nominal 10Gbps networks degrade to <1Gbps, and to fix that, you need to debug wires and connectors, and see where the signal integrity issue too. As speeds go up, those issues get more common. 10Mbps, you could almost literally run a pair of wires from Radio Shack and it would work. 1Gbps was the breakpoint where if I didn't use proper everything (which is often mislabelled on Amazon / Aliexpress / eBay / etc.), things would degrade. On the other hand, my wifi has a nice MIMO router. I expect that split will continue. In theory, a MIMO router with an array of antennas could be almost point-to-point, directing signals where they need to go. At the same time, as speeds go up, any parasitic cable / connector inductance or capacitance will have increasing impact.

vrighter 3y ago

toslink is a piece of junk plastic fiber and a red led. it's technically fiber optic, but can't really be compared to real fiber optic system

justinclift 3y ago

> Wired ethernet is now usually slower ... Newer wifi speeds are nifty for general consumers, but a lot of people (prosumers, small business) have moved on from 1GbE wired networking to much faster things. There's more than just 10GbE available (cheaply too if 2nd hand is ok). Wired networking also lets multiple people use the network at the full speed too, and tends to be a reliable experience. Well, more reliable than wifi anyway. ;)

blagie 3y ago
> Wired networking also lets multiple people use the network at the full speed too, and tends to be a reliable experience. Well, more reliable than wifi anyway. ;) In theory, MIMO and antenna arrays do too. Practice isn't quite there yet, but it's getting there.

constantcrying 3y ago

If you are suggesting to use WiFi for GPU interconnect in Datacenters you have to be insane. In general cables are much better if you can use them. The fundamental principle of EM waves is the same, but you get to decide whether these waves are inside a tight strand of material or just all around.

blagie 3y ago
I am not. I am responding to: "I don't have a horse in this race, but I saw today that there was a healthy thread <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40011762 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40011762> about "just pull fiber" when folks were discussing pulling cat6e and a lot of that talk was about the relative cost versus massive bandwidth gains." For home use, ethernet has increasingly moved into a hassle / performance point where I'm better off with either wifi or, if I wanted faster speed, fiber. I just wish fiber was cheaper.
- svnt 3y ago
  Fiber is not targeted at a volume/consumer market, yet. That’s the primary reason it isn’t cheaper, but it is still pretty cheap, and has the potential to be cheaper than copper. I’m confused by your whole sentiment. They said use fiber instead of wiring for 10Gb ethernet, and you’re just agreeing but naming alternatives that underperform it? It’s not very much more expensive to get a couple fiber NICs.