It works and supports bandwidth well beyond what the vast majority of usecases could ever saturate – and we get new iterations all the time which increase that ceiling. RJ45 connectors and their respective ports are everywhere. Sure, we have “better” types of cables and connectors for networking, but they’re almost always a staggering amount of overkill for the application and are not as common.
When did RJ45 last got a relevant update? 1 Gb/s is more than 2 decades old. It is still way more than enough for almost everyone. And it does not need a lot of power to operate.
How much power does that need to run? What does it cost? How many people could actually use that bandwidth? How does it generally compare to fiber optic?
It’s not about cost or outright performance. A cat6 patch cable is compatible with anything from a 10BASE-T intercom to a 10GBASE-T connection that can only be saturated with the most cutting-edge hardware (my desktop literally can’t write to its M.2 drive this fast!)
So if I’m running wires through walls, I’m choosing cat6 because it’ll work for basically any device, rather than constraining myself to exotic SFP connectors on both ends.
Fiber theoretically future-proofs you for 100GE, but let’s be real, that shit is HELLA expensive and literally no consumer hardware can benefit from it. Basically if your usecase requires fiber, you’ll know.
They are coming out with new cabling standards to allow multi gbps over extended distances. There is still a lot of room for growth. You are right that nothing more is needed for the average use case though.
It works and supports bandwidth well beyond what the vast majority of usecases could ever saturate – and we get new iterations all the time which increase that ceiling. RJ45 connectors and their respective ports are everywhere. Sure, we have “better” types of cables and connectors for networking, but they’re almost always a staggering amount of overkill for the application and are not as common.
And don’t make a satisfying click
LC connectors on fiber make a nice click too, that’s the type of ethernet cabling I work with at my dayjob.
When did RJ45 last got a relevant update? 1 Gb/s is more than 2 decades old. It is still way more than enough for almost everyone. And it does not need a lot of power to operate.
Well you can run 10 Gb/s over RJ45 these days too
How much power does that need to run? What does it cost? How many people could actually use that bandwidth? How does it generally compare to fiber optic?
It’s not about cost or outright performance. A cat6 patch cable is compatible with anything from a 10BASE-T intercom to a 10GBASE-T connection that can only be saturated with the most cutting-edge hardware (my desktop literally can’t write to its M.2 drive this fast!)
So if I’m running wires through walls, I’m choosing cat6 because it’ll work for basically any device, rather than constraining myself to exotic SFP connectors on both ends.
Fiber theoretically future-proofs you for 100GE, but let’s be real, that shit is HELLA expensive and literally no consumer hardware can benefit from it. Basically if your usecase requires fiber, you’ll know.
They are coming out with new cabling standards to allow multi gbps over extended distances. There is still a lot of room for growth. You are right that nothing more is needed for the average use case though.