You probably haven't had to think too much about what gadget to plug into what port on your home
router or network switch because they're usually all the same speed gigabit on just about everything
has been the standard for quite a while now but it looks like this is changing as we've started
to see other speeds even on consumer level gear not just enterprise stuff what other speeds are
we talking about well we did a video a while ago on 2.5 gigabit Ethernet which was developed as a
cheaper alternative to the much more pricey 10 gigabit revision not only are the actual 2.5
gigabit products like routers and switches and adapters cheaper but it can run over existing
cat 5e cabling not redoing all of your cabling that's a lot cheaper that's pretty appealing you
don't have to rewire your entire network in order to take advantage of speeds above one gigabit but
unlike gigabit equipment which usually just has the same speed on every port 2.5 5 and 10 gigabit
devices sometimes use different speeds on different ports but why well that depends on which gadget
you're asking about for example 2.5 gigabit routers with only one 2.5 gig port are becoming more
common typically that faster port is the WAN port designed to connect your modem or optical network
terminal if you have fiber so that you can take advantage of faster internet connections that
have recently become available you're going from the outside world to your router that's your fast
port a 2.5 gig router will obviously support a 2 gigabit connection the fastest commonly offered in
the us these days and they can even give you a little extra speed on a connection advertised as
one gigabit if your isp allows it but what's the point of having a 2.5 gigabit port for incoming
traffic if all the other outgoing ports are just one gigabit well it does mean you're not going to
be getting two plus gigabits on your client devices but the faster single WAN port eliminates a
bottleneck at the back end for example if you have two computers both trying to download a huge game
they could each run their downloads at around one gigabit per second instead of less than half of
that if your incoming port was just a one gig port so the idea here is to allow consumers to take
advantage of some of the benefits of 2.5 gigabit without being too expensive especially considering
the vast majority of client devices like TVs and game consoles and typical desktop computers
out there right now they just they only have one gigabit but what if your computer isn't
typical what if you've kitted out with a shiny new 2.5 gig adapter card can you go faster well
yes if you have the right equipment so if you want to pass that 2.5 gig speed from your router to
your other devices it's pretty easy to buy 2.5 gigabit network switches these days and unlike
routers these tend to have all the ports running the same speed not only are these useful for connecting
any new 2.5 gig computers you might have but they can help you if you run a home media server
multiple computers trying to access high resolution videos can do so without back end bottlenecking
similar to the example we gave earlier about sharing an internet connection but remember that
to connect everything together seamlessly and still have high speed backhaul you will typically
need a second higher speed Ethernet port on your router for your fancy 2.5 gigabit switch that's
2.5 to the outside world's internet and then another 2.5 to the switch and although these 2.5
gig switches are significantly more expensive than gigabit only options they're still way less
money than the faster 10 gig models which often have just one or two 10 gig ports to again keep
costs down these are designed more for enterprise settings where you need a really high speed backbone
for your network though at the time you're out this video there are actually a couple of 10 gigabit
home routers on the market with two supported ports each one of which features a design that looks
uncomfortably like a daddy long legs so bottom line a router with a 2.5 gig band port could be
useful if you have really fast internet and have multiple folks using lots of bandwidth but the
fancier stuff is probably more in the realm of the home media server crowd offices or other niche
use cases like having a whole den of video editors on your staff but who in the world would have that
so thanks for watching guys if you'd like this video hit like hit subscribe and hit us up in
the comment section with your ideas for topics that we should cover in the future