[Discuss-gnuradio] Gigabit coming to the desktop

[Steve Schear]

> Gigabit to desktop? Not so
> fast
> By Phil Hochmuth 
> Network World, 11/04/02 
> <http://www.nwfusion.com/news/2002/1104hp.html>
>
> Vendors might be moving full-bore to drive Gigabit Ethernet to the
> desktop, but users have other plans - at least for now.
> Hewlett-Packard this week will debut two fixed-port Gigabit Ethernet
> switches aimed at desktop users. Foundry Networks also this week will
> unveil a Gigabit workgroup box. Cisco recently announced new copper-based
> Gigabit switch products, and Dell has promised to ship its business PCs
> with integrated 10/100/1000Base-T ports.
> The decision to upgrade to Gigabit seems simple, right?
>
> Not so, according to industry observers, who say there are few
> applications to utilize the high-speed network gear, and technical
> hurdles such as PC throughput preclude widespread implementation.
> "The biggest obstacle I see to Gigabit on the desktop is that
> there's no killer app for it," says Lawrence Orans, a senior analyst
> with Gartner. "There's no need for a mainstream end user of a
> business PC to have Gigabit Ethernet on his desktop. For the daily
> computing tasks most enterprise end users take on - e-mail, Web browsing
> and some client/server applications - 10/100M bit/sec Ethernet is just
> fine."
>
> While applications such as voice and video have been touted as killer
> applications for desktop Gigabit, this is a misconception, Orans says. An
> uncompressed voice call over IP takes up only 64K bit/sec of bandwidth. A
> quality video stream is not much higher, averaging from 200K to 400K
> bit/sec. "That's a drop in the bucket when you're talking about a
> 100-megabit connection," he says.

The "quality" video stream Orans refers to doesn't even
approach the 10 mbps required for DVDs and the more than 35 mbps needed
for HDTV.  Since the realized throughput of CSMA/CD systems like
Ethernet is often less than 70% of peak, one HDTV signal could take half
of a 100Base-T link.  If 100 mbps is more than enough for home users
then why were Firewire and USB 2.0 spec'd so high?  

As has been shown time and time again in the computer industry, having
much faster and cheaper interconnection bandwidth will likely spur the
development of at least one killer app.

steve