3 ms·

What is an Ethernet cable? Here's how to connect to the internet without Wi-Fi (2022)

25 points by askl 2y ago

tssva 2y ago
Is this the beginning of a series that is going to cover all the types of "ethernet cables" such as RG-8/U, RG-58/U, MMF, SMF, and twinax cable? If so, I hope the rest are better than this one on twisted pair cables.
- topspin 2y ago
  I've had to deal with too many Eloi that are in desperate need of learning about the benefits of a solid, wired connection. If this story moves the needle on that while neglecting Ethernet's long history of mediums, it's fine with me. If any of those are reading this: Your WiFi makes you sound bad in conference calls and video meetings, and people think you're a low status worker that can't afford a good laptop or internet. Hurry up and get a Ethernet thingy.
relyks 2y ago
Besides ethernet cables providing more stability to your network connection than WiFi, it isn't mentioned in the article. Not many people know about this: most houses have coaxial cable lined throughout. If your router is located in a different location in the house, you can use the coaxial cable to help create a network. You need two MoCA adapters (coaxial to ethernet) on both sides (one at the router/switch/gateway and another at your computer). Connect it all up… bingo, bango, bongo, and you got stable and fast internet! This is how I have the most stable connection in my house :)
- bognition 2y ago
  If you do this doing forget to add a moca filter where your cable enters your house, otherwise you will leak your Ethernet signal to anyone who is on the same cable.
- exmadscientist 2y ago
  Also remember that even if you can't or don't want to connect your device via Ethernet, you might be able to use MoCA to easily move your WiFi router to a better location, or add a second router/mesh node with a reliable wired backhaul instead of a crappy radio backhaul, and that might make all the difference.
- robin_reala 2y ago
  I’m not sure I’ve ever been in a house with pre-existing coax, apart from possibly an antenna connection. Is this a US thing?
  - bombcar 2y ago
    Lots of US houses have coax to all the main rooms (family, bedrooms) because that was how you got cable TV. (I still see it in new construction, though if I was having a build done I'd say run multiple Ethernet instead of any coax)
    - tkuraku 2y ago
      I'm just building a new house this year and Ethernet to every room is standard in this area. In a different state in the US coax is standard in new construction. (We just moved) It varies by location.
      - bombcar 2y ago
        Around here it's coax + Ethernet to any "TV" room, Ethernet to all rooms (think - phone line).
  - clan 2y ago
    Nope. As you say yourself: Possibly an antenna connection. Exactly that. When we redid the floors i our apartment we renewed the electrical wiring and added ethernet and coax. The coax was intended for radio/tv. There is however an overlap of people who have the foresight to add coax cabling also add ethernet a well. If I was was re-doing today I would add more empty pipes and fiber. Cabling ahead has a very high WAF (Wife Approval Factor) when adding new gear :-)
  - cjs_ac 2y ago
    I've lived in both Australia and the UK, and the only coaxial cables in any home I had/have have been direct point-to-point connections from the roof-mounted TV antenna to the corner of the sitting room where the TV was intended to be placed. Not terribly useful for computer networking.
- zabzonk 2y ago
  Most unreliable network I ever had the misfortune to use (not to install) was coax thin ethernet when I worked at the BBC - termination problems were terrible. Twisted pair for the win as far as I'm concerned or better, WiFi. I don't think I have any coax in my fairly modern UK house.
  - Symbiote 2y ago
    They don't mean 10Base2 "Thinnet", common in the late 1980s and in cheap installations in the early 1990s. They mean a modern (ish) device which uses existing TV cabling, to avoid rewiring in houses.
  - superjan 2y ago
    Coax ethernet was often deployed as a bus: 20something computers that must be directly connected to a single cable going from room to room. If one of the plugs was unplugged or not tightened correctly, everyone on that line suffered. This happened a lot, people moved computers around. And the tech looks simple. That is a different situation than installing a fixed, point to point connection.
  - tialaramex 2y ago
    Depending on how modern it is, you might well have "telephone extensions". In principle this is Cat 3 cable strung in a tree shape, but in practice the electrician is probably buying wholesale cable - carrying one reel of Cat 5 for all jobs is easier than owning a Cat 3 reel and a Cat 5 reel and bringing the right one for each job, the price is usually either identical or within pennies. So there's an excellent chance it's Cat 5 cable anyway†. Now, Cat 5 cable is a perfectly good telephone cable, but it's also Gigabit Ethernet (over reasonable distances, you don't live in a mansion). The tree shape won't work for networking, but the individual cables buried in walls or elsewhere are basically just right there already. You just hook the existing cables to new Ethernet shaped faceplates. I am literally writing this from a wired connection in a bedroom, nobody built this to have Ethernet, they built it to put a phone in the main bedroom, but it's 2025, nobody owns a wired phone, everybody needs Internet. † Also the network cards can't tell, they will try to achieve 1000 Mbit/s and chances are they succeed even if the cable isn't actually rated Category 5. I have retro-fitted modern switches to an ancient building (the old Mountbatten chip fab at the University of Southampton, before it burned down) and in 90+% of cases this "upgrades" the connection to Gigabit because the Cat 3 cable pulled a decade or more earlier was good enough.
jimjimjim 2y ago
I understand why this sort of article is informative and useful these days but damn I feel old!
- userbinator 2y ago
  When I first heard about an Ethernet cable, it was a thick and stiff pipe-like thing.
  - clan 2y ago
    Kids these days wouldn't now the struggle of finding a weak termination. Now get off my lawn ;-)
- pards 2y ago
  I no longer assume that digital natives understand how technology actually works under the hood. They teach me about the latest social media trends, I teach them about computer hardware, networking, and terminology. My kids: Dad, the internet's down. Me: The internet's fine. You're just not connected to it. And yes, my home office has an ethernet hardline because it's faster and more reliable.
userbinator 2y ago
(2022) Ethernet might be one of the longest-lived backwards-compatible standards in the computer industry; you can plug one end of a cable into a PC from 2025 and the other into one from 1990, and they will communicate perfectly.
- Philadelphia 2y ago
  Most computers from 1990 didn’t have built-in ethernet or native support for TCP/IP, though, so you would have to buy and install both of them.
  - kalleboo 2y ago
    1990 might be a bit early but from 1991 Apple started putting Ethernet in their Macs as standard edit: I phrased this poorly, all Macs didn't have it as standard but what I meant to say is they started releasing Macs that had it as standard, starting from the mid-range (Centris) and up, the point is just Ethernet had stopped being a niche technology
    - Philadelphia 2y ago
      Maybe one or two of them, but I had Macs in 1991, and much later, and they didn’t have built-in Ethernet. You would use a dongle off the ADB port for networking.
      - clan 2y ago
        You are missing the point. You are correct that thin ethernet might have been the craze. On the PC you would add an ISA or PCI card. So should we only count from when it was added to the motherboards? The point is that the first 10 base T still works if used with modern equipment. That standard is from 1990 and grew extremely fast. Around 1993-1995 coax was considered totally outdated. Fixing termination problems where never fun. A nail in the coffin was 100 Base T which was standardized in 1995. Tokenring and ATM was contenders around that time but lost to ethernet. That kind of backwards compatibility is really amazing.
FrankSansC 2y ago
https://archive.is/EucQx https://archive.is/EucQx
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
deleted 2y ago
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4b11b4 2y ago
Is this real

25 points by askl 2y ago

Is this the beginning of a series that is going to cover all the types of "ethernet cables" such as RG-8/U, RG-58/U, MMF, SMF, and twinax cable? If so, I hope the rest are better than this one on twisted pair cables.

topspin 2y ago
I've had to deal with too many Eloi that are in desperate need of learning about the benefits of a solid, wired connection. If this story moves the needle on that while neglecting Ethernet's long history of mediums, it's fine with me. If any of those are reading this: Your WiFi makes you sound bad in conference calls and video meetings, and people think you're a low status worker that can't afford a good laptop or internet. Hurry up and get a Ethernet thingy.

relyks 2y ago

Besides ethernet cables providing more stability to your network connection than WiFi, it isn't mentioned in the article. Not many people know about this: most houses have coaxial cable lined throughout. If your router is located in a different location in the house, you can use the coaxial cable to help create a network. You need two MoCA adapters (coaxial to ethernet) on both sides (one at the router/switch/gateway and another at your computer). Connect it all up… bingo, bango, bongo, and you got stable and fast internet! This is how I have the most stable connection in my house :)

bognition 2y ago
If you do this doing forget to add a moca filter where your cable enters your house, otherwise you will leak your Ethernet signal to anyone who is on the same cable.
exmadscientist 2y ago
Also remember that even if you can't or don't want to connect your device via Ethernet, you might be able to use MoCA to easily move your WiFi router to a better location, or add a second router/mesh node with a reliable wired backhaul instead of a crappy radio backhaul, and that might make all the difference.
robin_reala 2y ago
I’m not sure I’ve ever been in a house with pre-existing coax, apart from possibly an antenna connection. Is this a US thing?
- bombcar 2y ago
  Lots of US houses have coax to all the main rooms (family, bedrooms) because that was how you got cable TV. (I still see it in new construction, though if I was having a build done I'd say run multiple Ethernet instead of any coax)
  - tkuraku 2y ago
    I'm just building a new house this year and Ethernet to every room is standard in this area. In a different state in the US coax is standard in new construction. (We just moved) It varies by location.
    - bombcar 2y ago
      Around here it's coax + Ethernet to any "TV" room, Ethernet to all rooms (think - phone line).
- clan 2y ago
  Nope. As you say yourself: Possibly an antenna connection. Exactly that. When we redid the floors i our apartment we renewed the electrical wiring and added ethernet and coax. The coax was intended for radio/tv. There is however an overlap of people who have the foresight to add coax cabling also add ethernet a well. If I was was re-doing today I would add more empty pipes and fiber. Cabling ahead has a very high WAF (Wife Approval Factor) when adding new gear :-)
- cjs_ac 2y ago
  I've lived in both Australia and the UK, and the only coaxial cables in any home I had/have have been direct point-to-point connections from the roof-mounted TV antenna to the corner of the sitting room where the TV was intended to be placed. Not terribly useful for computer networking.
zabzonk 2y ago
Most unreliable network I ever had the misfortune to use (not to install) was coax thin ethernet when I worked at the BBC - termination problems were terrible. Twisted pair for the win as far as I'm concerned or better, WiFi. I don't think I have any coax in my fairly modern UK house.
- Symbiote 2y ago
  They don't mean 10Base2 "Thinnet", common in the late 1980s and in cheap installations in the early 1990s. They mean a modern (ish) device which uses existing TV cabling, to avoid rewiring in houses.
- superjan 2y ago
  Coax ethernet was often deployed as a bus: 20something computers that must be directly connected to a single cable going from room to room. If one of the plugs was unplugged or not tightened correctly, everyone on that line suffered. This happened a lot, people moved computers around. And the tech looks simple. That is a different situation than installing a fixed, point to point connection.
- tialaramex 2y ago
  Depending on how modern it is, you might well have "telephone extensions". In principle this is Cat 3 cable strung in a tree shape, but in practice the electrician is probably buying wholesale cable - carrying one reel of Cat 5 for all jobs is easier than owning a Cat 3 reel and a Cat 5 reel and bringing the right one for each job, the price is usually either identical or within pennies. So there's an excellent chance it's Cat 5 cable anyway†. Now, Cat 5 cable is a perfectly good telephone cable, but it's also Gigabit Ethernet (over reasonable distances, you don't live in a mansion). The tree shape won't work for networking, but the individual cables buried in walls or elsewhere are basically just right there already. You just hook the existing cables to new Ethernet shaped faceplates. I am literally writing this from a wired connection in a bedroom, nobody built this to have Ethernet, they built it to put a phone in the main bedroom, but it's 2025, nobody owns a wired phone, everybody needs Internet. † Also the network cards can't tell, they will try to achieve 1000 Mbit/s and chances are they succeed even if the cable isn't actually rated Category 5. I have retro-fitted modern switches to an ancient building (the old Mountbatten chip fab at the University of Southampton, before it burned down) and in 90+% of cases this "upgrades" the connection to Gigabit because the Cat 3 cable pulled a decade or more earlier was good enough.

jimjimjim 2y ago

I understand why this sort of article is informative and useful these days but damn I feel old!

userbinator 2y ago
When I first heard about an Ethernet cable, it was a thick and stiff pipe-like thing.
- clan 2y ago
  Kids these days wouldn't now the struggle of finding a weak termination. Now get off my lawn ;-)
pards 2y ago
I no longer assume that digital natives understand how technology actually works under the hood. They teach me about the latest social media trends, I teach them about computer hardware, networking, and terminology. My kids: Dad, the internet's down. Me: The internet's fine. You're just not connected to it. And yes, my home office has an ethernet hardline because it's faster and more reliable.

userbinator 2y ago

(2022) Ethernet might be one of the longest-lived backwards-compatible standards in the computer industry; you can plug one end of a cable into a PC from 2025 and the other into one from 1990, and they will communicate perfectly.

Philadelphia 2y ago
Most computers from 1990 didn’t have built-in ethernet or native support for TCP/IP, though, so you would have to buy and install both of them.
- kalleboo 2y ago
  1990 might be a bit early but from 1991 Apple started putting Ethernet in their Macs as standard edit: I phrased this poorly, all Macs didn't have it as standard but what I meant to say is they started releasing Macs that had it as standard, starting from the mid-range (Centris) and up, the point is just Ethernet had stopped being a niche technology
  - Philadelphia 2y ago
    Maybe one or two of them, but I had Macs in 1991, and much later, and they didn’t have built-in Ethernet. You would use a dongle off the ADB port for networking.
    - clan 2y ago
      You are missing the point. You are correct that thin ethernet might have been the craze. On the PC you would add an ISA or PCI card. So should we only count from when it was added to the motherboards? The point is that the first 10 base T still works if used with modern equipment. That standard is from 1990 and grew extremely fast. Around 1993-1995 coax was considered totally outdated. Fixing termination problems where never fun. A nail in the coffin was 100 Base T which was standardized in 1995. Tokenring and ATM was contenders around that time but lost to ethernet. That kind of backwards compatibility is really amazing.

FrankSansC 2y ago

https://archive.is/EucQx https://archive.is/EucQx

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

4b11b4 2y ago

Is this real