Heck, even on old POTS cable (4-wire, untwisted, red,green,yellow,black; the kind in your grandparents house), phones only used half the conductors.
Yet the phone company installed this all over, because it was cheap & readily available, and the spare pair was handy in case of problems. (Or in the extremely rare case of a house with two phone lines.)
Why would you have to use a different protocol just because the wire was CAT 5 wire instead of a USB cable? Aren’t we just talking the packaging the wire comes in rather than any real technical difference? And if there was only one type of cable, wouldn’t that be cheaper to the consumer than a plethora of cables?
(Note that question is from a technical ignoramus.)
Why couldn’t the protocol remain the same?
Just the wire and the connectors would change.
I think the industry could find a solution for plugging the wrong connectors into the wrong ports/devices by simply adding a key or notch in the connector and terminal. A monitor cable would have a notch in such a place as to make it impossible to push into the mouse terminal, etc. You could still use cat5(or 7) conectors (with notches) and even make them color coded so there would be even less confusion. Plus, there’s no reason why the PC wouldn’t be able to tell the difference (if a wrong device was plugged in to the wrong port) and refuse to communicate with the device (thereby not damaging each other).
Mini RJ45. There, problem solved.
This is basically my concern, coupled with a desire for simplicity of design and useage. I could make all my own custom length cables in a matter of minutes rather than spend several hours shopping and paying through the nose for the correct length ‘specialty’ cables.
By this you seem to mean that he agrees with your premise rather than engaging in debate and speculation.
It’s not clear (to me, at any rate) what problem you’ve solved. You’re going to have unique connectors, different sizes to satisfy form factors, et cetera. You seem to have generalized your “Cat 5” standard to encompass all devices, which is coming back around to where you started.
If there should be any common standard, USB, Firewire, or something like it should be it…and indeed, USB 2.0 is becoming the standard way of connecting peripherals and doing hardline P2P networking.
Oh, and Cat 5 would be a bad “standard” to impose given the increasing prominence of Gigabit Ethernet. Indeed, if you wanted to promote a new single cable standard it should include a fiber optic physical layer for communication transport which is compatible with 10GBASE-SR or at least twisted pair copper with 10GBASE-T conformance to support 10Gig Ethernet.
Stranger
That’s what I’m asking you, are you proposing we standardize on TCP/IP, or merely the same physical cable and connector but using different protocols as needed? You originally said you wanted just one cable running from the PC to a hub, and be able to plug in various devices to the hub. That would require that all those devices run on the same protocol.
So you want to standardize on one type of cable/connector, but then create variations to make them incompatible? What’s the point??
Cost is a reason.
Isn’t the computer industry as a whole making a lot more money by having everyone buy 6 types of specialized cables/wires?
On the converse, don’t you think ‘the industry’ would save a lot of money by not coming up with a dozen different physical interface methods? All they’d need to stock is rolls and rolls of cat-5 and a zillion RJ-48 jacks.
There must be a reason that didn’t happen.
No, he was able to find instances that showed what I thougt could be done was actually being done.
Maybe, but you would at least have the same cable. If the connectors had to be slightly different to prevent damage to mismatching that would be a small and cheap price to pay. I could buy a 1000’ box of Cat7 for $100 bucks and a bag of miscellaneous cat7 connectors for a few bucks more and then make any and all cables I’d need. Try doing that with VGA cable, usb, and any other type of cable except cat7.
I’d be fine with that too. But I’m asking why, exactly, we can’t do this with a simple cable of the ‘cat5’ type.
I guess my ‘hub’ scenario was poorly thought out. Is there any reason we can’t have the same cabling for all peripherals using the same protocol in use now - just make the cabling standard?
The point would be that the cable itself is still the same and there would be small variations in the connectors. That’s much different than what we actually have today, with the completely different types of cables for each device and completely different terminations on many of them.
With a cheap cat7 crimping tool, and some cheap connectors (different styles for different devices) and a 1000’ box of cat7 cable anyone could make the exact length and number of cables they’d need for their peripherals.
I think very few people would benefit from this. In most cases, peripherals are sold with the appropriate cables, and there’s no need for the user to go out and buy different length cables. And I really don’t want those thick cat-5 cables running to my mouse and keyboard
You’re also forgetting that many peripherals don’t have connectors, usually to reduce cost. Instead the cable is soldered to the PCB. In this case you’re still stuck with the cable the manufacturer chose, and you don’t gain much from standardization.
The old adage “The great thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from” isn’t as sarcastic as it may sound. It does help to have several different standards to choose from. Right tool for the right job
I suppose they could, but who is likely to do so? It’s easy to make lamp cord as long as you want, but most people just buy little extension cords (or a lamp with a longer cord in the first place. For that matter, it’s easy to get a length of power cable and put your own ends on it, but most people don’t bother. On those very rare events that you actually need a longer cord than you can buy… well, you just buy two and link 'em together.
And both of those examples are vastly simpler than trying to remember (or correctly interpret) the color patterns for cat5 cable, and for random people to remember the difference between a patch cable and a crossover cable, or maybe some other random cable format that would only have 1 pair switched, or 3. Hell, I know how to do that stuff, and I still just go down to CompUSA (or wherever) when I need a network cable.
And all those other cables are mass produced. I’m sure there would be some savings as a result of ultra-standardizing the cable production, but not drastic ones.
I bought a 6’ VGA extension cable a while ago. It was about $8. With both connectors on it. And I didn’t have to futz with dykes or punchdown tools. I would have saved, what, $4 if the cable had been $0.10/ft, assuming that I already had the tools, and I wanted to buy 1000’ of cable at a time. That’s just not worth it to me. And most people are way less inclined to build their own electronics than I am. This is a solution in search of a problem.
First of all, I can’t disagree with your implicit contention that cables, in general, are seriously overpriced. However, a few points to consider:
[ul]
[li]As has already been noted, Cat 5 cable is kind of thick and heavy; not what you’d prefer to use on, say, a mouse or keyboard.[/li][li]Cat 7 cable is significantly worse in this regard.[/li][li]As others have mentioned, the form factor of a the RJ-45 jack doesn’t fit well with modern, miniturized peripherals such as the iPod. Calling out mini-RJ-45 doesn’t really address that; you still end up with a massive cable with a small, delicate connector.[/li][li]Crimped connectors are, as electricians are well aware, not the most robust connection. While someone pointed out that vendors sometimes hardwire their connector into their device, this is also often done for robustness. It’s virtually impossible to accidentially tear the head off of a USB connector, but I’ve often seen Cat 5 and Cat 6 lines with crimp connectors come loose.[/li][/ul]
There’s no reason, I suppose, that it couldn’t be done if there were a driving impetus to do so–you can do any silly old think you like–but there’s also no particular reason to force this. The market is actually rather good at paring down redundant or obsolete connectors. You’ll notice that RS-232 serial ports have all but disappeared from modern computers, for instance; as valuable as it was at the time, it and several other types have been replaced by the appropriately named USB. The Firewire standard, which was functinally similar to USB 2.0, has been largely deprecated in favor of the latter. Et cetera, ad nausum. If you like to unify on Cat 5, be my guest, but the market–that is to say, manufacturers, hardware developers, and end users don’t seem to have any burning need for it.
There are also good physical reasons for not trying to make one physical layer do all jobs; the reason USB cables are limited in length, for instance, is to limit the degredation from electromagnetic influence from the power line. It’s the right standard for the job of attaching local peripherals (Firewire advocates aside) but not for other jobs. scr4 is right about using the appropriate tool to do the job.
Stranger
Have you considered that cat5 isn’t even standarized? There’s the solid core stuff and the stranded. So even then, you’ve got inconsitencies.
As far as suffering due to various formats: what??? Everything I buy has a cable. Now I’ve got FOUR separate SATA cables I don’t need, at least two FireWire cables, and countless USB cables. I also have about 400’ of Cat 5e, but that’s 'cos I make my own ethernet cables (not very convincing in the argument AGAINST, I agree :)).
Well, I think posts 30-32 pretty well shot down my plan to corner the market on a cat5 cabling standard. 
Really, thanks for the input, the information, and the discussion.
I love this place.
Balthisar, Doesn’t ‘Cat5’ mean it’s standardised to certain specs?
BTW, I would have standardised the stranded cable…
I hear ya about the cables, I’ve got a box of odds and ends myself.
It was an interesting discussion, and don’t think that you don’t make a good point about trying to commonize on a few central standards and types of connectors. But the profusion of standards is due to the continued development of communication technologies; today’s ultrafast hyperconnect is tomorrow’s old and busted. Look, for instance, at the profusion of SCSI-based standards (that were supposed to be superceded by IEEE-1394 but continue to exist in various forms.)
And when you get into the world of high performance custom architectures, it gets even worse. SGI has several proprietary connection standards, and there are some crazy things on Crays that make sysops weep for mercy. Customers, manufacturers, and everybody else are better off with a few appropriate standards; witness the current, mostly futile battle between various not-quite-harmonious InfiniBand makers, Myranet, all vs. 10GigEthernet. But that doesn’t call for shoehorning application into one spec.
Stranger
Besides cost, there are installation considerations. Minor perhaps, but important when you are wiring a large facility. One of the major differences between Cat 5 and Cat 3 (to site just one example of another type of cable. Other posts have covered the different sizes) is the number of twists/foot. The higher Cat 5 wire is stiffer and somewhat harder to pull and bend around corners (safely, the minimum bend radius is larger). So when you are installing it you should be more careful and plan more carefully. Not that anyone does anymore :(. So one should always use the proper cable for the job. BTW, the cost of a Cat 5 connector is usually twice that of a Cat 3 connector, so either you throw away the potential speed of the cable or you raise your total cost by a lot. Use the proper cable-you will do a better job and save money as well. As for fiber-that is only worthwhile when you absolutely need it. Anything that requires a microscope to patch is usually more trouble than it is worth.
I think that Cat 5 only refers to the electrical characteristics of the cable. Consider all of the Cat 5 variations that are already in the the “standard”: stranded (desktop and patch cable use) and non-stranded (not as flexible as the desktop stuff but dirt cheap); plenum and non-plenum; color codes that are almost but not quite standard; two different (but compatible) “standard” wiring configurations for the connectors; there’s even shielded Cat 5 when the point of Cat 5 is to be UTP in the first place. Then to be picky and introduce even more variation I’ll just mention that there are a whole lot of different colors, like white and grey and blue and yellow and funny nancy colors available too. 
We don’t actually use microscopes anymore, but point taken. 
Regarding the twists in cat5; It isn’t that there’s just more twists per foot making the wire stiffer, it’s that each pair has a different number of twists compared to the other pairs. The blue pair may have 50 twists per foot and the brown may have 49, the green 35, and the orange 42 (or something like that) - it is the science of the relationship among the twist ratios between the pairs that makes cat5 superior to cat3.
Nice simulpost!
Anyway, my experience with cat5 (I took a short class to be ‘qualified’ as an installer) shows that the cable must meet minimum standards under controlled testing to be considered cat5 (you will have different brands that exceed these standards, so yes there is a variance among cables, but they all exceed the minimum requirements). The different color jackets and the different ratings (plenum{fire rated} and non-plenum) don’t really affect the performance of the cable. Also, the different wiring configurations you mention are only different at the terminals, not the length of the cable. Finally, both stranded and solid cables need to pass the same minimum requirements to be considered cat5.
Stranded are better for patch cables, and solid is more suited for long runs of branch wiring.
I’m pretty sure that the different numbers of twists/length between the pairs is just so that they don’t interfere with each other. But one of the interesting consequences of this comes up when you run VGA over Cat5 - because the pairs are twisted differently, the actual length of the pairs differs. If you take a 150’ length of Cat5 and seperate and straighten out the wires, the different coloured wires will be different lengths. Since VGA over Cat5 devices run the red, green, and blue signals over seperate pairs, and the syncs on the last pair, over longish differences you get different latency between these, resulting in a sort of signal smear unless you compensate for it.