Re: [10GBASE-T] Economic feasibility or Market Potential?
> Part of the reason that CX4 will enjoy "Broad Market Potential" is that its
> cost factor is negligible relative to the available alternatives and it is
> based upon technology that is available today. Initial silicon will have a
> substantially lower cost than the fiber-optic alternatives, and it can be
> quickly integrated into MAC ASSP silicon which makes it even more cost
> effective. At ~1W/port, the power impact on device packaging and system
> cooling is acceptable, in fact, pretty much equivalent to 1000BASE-T.
Hi Dan,
Sorry, I don't buy that.
I agree with Pat that all 5 criteria need to be evaluated together to justify
any and all of them. But, before you get to that point you need to be able to
justify each one of them separately. Furthermore, in my mind, the fact that a
technology is dirt cheap and is technically a no-brainer does not necessarily
imply that it has broad market potential.
To me the issue is simple. We are comparing two (not necessarily competing)
technologies that primarily target the same application space, which is the
datacenter:
1. 10GBase-CX4:
- 15m.
- Non-installed, non-standard, ugly cable.
2. 10GBase-T:
- Most of the experts that I talked to concede (at least privately) that 50m
over INSTALLED cable should not be a huge technical challenge, to say the
least. Many of them claim that longer distances can also be achieved.
- All of the above (maybe with one exception) also concede that there is at
least one new cable that will allow a 100m reach.
In the study group we had several excellent contributions from an esteemed 802.3
member that demonstrated the installed cabling length distribution and the installed
cabling forecast 3 years from now. Please see:
http://ieee802.org/3/10GBT/public/jul03/flatman_1_0703.pdf
http://ieee802.org/3/10GBT/public/jan03/flatman_1_0103.pdf
Based on the above data, for the datacenter only:
- 10GBase-CX4 will be applicable to ~25% of the links AT BEST.
- 10GBase-T will be applicable to 95% of the links AT LEAST.
Therefore, I have trouble reconciling in my mind the claim that #1 has broad market
potential, while #2 does not.
Regards,
Shimon.