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From: cyrus@hi.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.lans
Subject: Re: Cheapernet survey
Message-ID: <3857@suraj.hi.uucp>
Date: Fri, 10-Apr-87 09:04:29 EST
Article-I.D.: suraj.3857
Posted: Fri Apr 10 09:04:29 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 11-Apr-87 17:12:23 EST
References: <129@stan.UUCP>
Reply-To: cyrus@suraj.UUCP (Tait Cyrus)
Organization: U. of New Mexico, Albuquerque
Lines: 51

In article <129@stan.UUCP> jmoore@stan.UUCP (Jim Moore) writes:
 >
 >
 >Has anyone done any marketing research on the popularity of cheapernet? 
 >Also, are there any cheapernet sites out there that have strong feelings
 >that cheapernet is or is not worth offering in a new product? I would be
 >very interested experiences whether they are good or bad.
 >
 >Thanks in advance,
 >
 >Jim Moore
 >SAE, Longmont, Colorado
 >decwrl!hplabs!hao!stan!jmoore


Here at the University of New Mexico a new Engineering building was
built with most every room in it containing a face plate that contains
a phone jack, a terminal jack, a video jack AND a thin wire (cheapernet)
jack.  We really like the cheapernet because it is easy to work with
and because making cables is REAL easy.  You don't have to go out and
buy transceiver cable.  The problem though, is that most of the
equipment that is on our net is 'old' style transceiver connector type
which means that we (the Univ.) have to not only buy transceiver cables,
but also a "thinwire-to-transceiver" converter (like DEC's DESTA).

We do have some new SUN's that have the thin wire connector built in,
along with the 'standard' transceiver connector.  This is REAL nice
because it gives us the option as to use either.

More to the point of your question.  I think that as more and more
equipment starts to have the thin wire option (cheapernet), more 
and more people will be going to thin wire, namely because it is
easier to work with.

Some of the problems with thin wire that we (the Univ.) see are that
the cost of a thin wire repeater (DEC's DEMPER) is around 10 times
that of a thick wire version (DEC's DELNI).  For example a DELNI is,
and this is REAL rough, around $800 while a DEMPER is around $8000.

I don't know if this helps or not but.........

-- 
    @__________@    W. Tait Cyrus   (505) 277-0806
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  / |        / |    Dept of EECE - Hypercube Project
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 |  |       |  |
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