I'm shocked there hasn't been a whisper of amphenol. As an rf guy, I vote all connectors move to sma or bnc. I can then justify the cost of a Walmart 10 foot cable for 25 dollars.. And if we gold plate them, we can charge a premium. ;)
From my Galaxy Note II, please excuse any mistakes.
-------- Original message -------- From: George Herbert <george.herbert@gmail.com> Date: 12/20/2012 1:15 PM (GMT-08:00) To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: why haven't ethernet connectors changed? Having (once) tapped thicknet, done a lot of thinnet termination and cable cut debugging, and then used hubs and switches in 10BT and onwards... Having had one main standard (RJ45) has been a huge benefit to advancing the state of networking to where we are today. But it is probably worth questioning if that's true going forwards. Laptops and Rasberry PI devices and some other device types define a "light" category, where positive retention and self-cable-termination are probably not net positives. Device side space and interconnect insert/remove cycles (along with sufficiently stiff connection retention, but not necessarily mechanical) would be prime drivers for this class. For some users, even more positive than RJ45 is warranted. I at times work in and have a number of friends working in various aerospace and rocketry areas, and RJ45's have been widely known to come loose under acceleration. Those people use more positive connctors (M12, other IP67, etc) for the most part. Those other standards exist already, though it's not unified down to one right answer yet. For datacenters, servers, most desktops, etc., I don't know that there's a good case for change. RJ45 is not broke for those users. The comment upthread a bit about a 2-wire / 1 pair spec, interoperable with 4-wire / 2 pair switches, with a RJ45 at one end and a device connector at the other, makes sense to me. Most of the "light connector" users would not need the full bandwidth. Even if this turns out to not be easy enough to do, a 4-wire mini connector of some sort is not that big of a deal. Whether that's a micro-insert, a magnetic-attached, what details... I see good arguments for magnetic attach, but it's harder to make them small. I see good arguments for small, but those will be mechanical and less positively retained. I don't know that the discussion is a NANOG-centric one from here on in, but it's good to have raised the idea. -- -george william herbert george.herbert@gmail.com