A Penny Saved is a Cable Saved

Copper is worth a lot of money these days. For all I know, a penny may be worth more than a penny, raw material wise. And you read daily about crooks stealing copper wiring from unoccupied houses, and even Internet trunk lines.

Moreover, entrepreneurs are finding it profitable to dig up copper cables buried decades ago. In the 1960s, for instance, the government buried copper cables on the farm where I grew up to connect and control ICBM missles. The missles disappeared years ago, but the copper cables remained buried--until recently. Now my mother is taking bids from entrepreneurs who want to dig up and reclaim the copper cables. What goes around, comes around.

For the most part these days, copper is used for relatively short distances--connecting computers to peripherals, for instance--while longer distance (like that of Internet systems) are glass fiber optic cables. Yes, fiber optics is a lot faster than copper, but its also more expensive.

But researchers are trying to bridge that gap between copper and glass, at least performane wise. At Penn State, for example, engineers are looking at what they call a "new generation of Ethernet cables" that increase the data transmission of Category-7 copper cables at a rate of 100 gigabits per second over 100 meters of cable. Category 7 is made up of four pairs of twisted wires shielded to reduce crosstalk.

"A rate of 100 gigabit over 70 meters is definitely possible, and we are working on extending that to 100 meters, or about 328 feet," says grad student Ali Enteshari. "However, the design of a 100 gigabit modem might not be physically realizable at this time as it is technology limited. We are providing a roadmap to design a high-speed modem for 100 gigabits."

Not to mention deep ruts on the back 40 of my land.

-- Jonathan Erickson
jerickson@ddj.com

Posted by Jon Erickson at 01:17 PM  Permalink