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Consumer Ethernet has pretty much followed the rule of each generation having 10 times the maximum speed of the previous one.

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However, the game is changing. There are actually some quarter and half measures in the works. Yes, my friends, that's right.

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You're gonna be seeing 2.5 gigabit and

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5 gigabit Ethernet devices popping up all over the place.

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But why? To answer, we spoke to Ben Hacker and Ben Benson over at Intel and we'd like to thank them for their contributions to this episode.

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As internet speeds get faster, it's becoming clear that we're gonna need something that is faster than the gigabit Ethernet

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that's supported by lots of our home modems and routers.

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Even if you don't have fiber to the home, new versions of the DOCSIS cable internet standard can support speeds beyond one gigabit per second.

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In fact, two gigabit connections are becoming common in tech mechas like South Korea and Japan, which is all fine and good.

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But why bother with this tweener stuff when you can go out and buy a 10 gigabit network card and 10 gigabit switch today?

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Well, the issue is that the 10 gigabit standard doesn't work very well over most of the existing Ethernet

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cabling that's out there. So if you go out and buy a

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theoretical cable modem with a 10 gig port on the back of it,

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chances are that you're gonna end up needing to change out every network cable in your house in order to get the full benefit of it.

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And in commercial installations, this problem is much worse.

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You see, many buildings have been pre-wired with Ethernet jacks in the walls that used the older

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Cat5e cable standard, which was designed to handle up to one gigabit per second over a distance of a hundred meters.

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And for a long time, that was just fine. But 10 gigabit Ethernet requires a newer cable called Cat6 to go 50 meters and an even higher-end cable called Cat6a

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with the A4 augmented to do the full hundred meters. The reason that Cat5e can't carry a 10 gigabit signal

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effectively over those distances is that it doesn't have as much protection against interference and

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crosstalk. So what this means is that getting 10 gigabit to work in many places

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would mean ripping the old cables out of the wall and putting in new ones.

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And that is alongside all of the equipment in the networking room and all of the client PCs.

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That is a tough triple whammy to the old corporate pocketbook.

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So the powers that be are instead introducing a two and a half gigabit Ethernet solution.

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Because it turns out that a Cat5e cable that was built to spec can actually handle a two and a half gigabit per second signal

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just fine over a hundred meters and even a five gigabit per second signal will

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usually work. The hold-up was just that the industry doesn't like to bother rolling out a new spec for less than 10 times the previous speed.

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Because they typically view it as not being worth the effort it takes.

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But given how excessive the 10 gigabit speed is for general consumers and the fact that 10 gigabit equipment is still a lot more expensive.

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The industry has finally developed an interest in being able to sell faster equipment at a price that consumers can actually handle.

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So faster Ethernet speeds then are going to have immediate benefits for enthusiasts and prosumers who want the additional bandwidth

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for things like transferring files between

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PCs and network attached storage or running home media servers. As for the regular consumer,

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well, the benefits today might actually be limited.

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But two and a half or five gigabit Ethernet jacks rolling out in computers, network adapters, and modems

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over the coming years means that our underlying infrastructure is going to be ready for future advancements like

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8k streaming video to multiple household members and other amazing technology that makes it so we just don't actually have to talk to each other anymore.

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Thanks for watching guys. Like, dislike, check out our other videos and leave a comment.

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If you have a suggestion for a future fast as possible episode, we really do read them.

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Sometimes they're bad and we don't take them, but we do read them.