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Re: [RE] What's wrong using FireWire as the home backbone?



-----Original Message-----
From: owner-stds-802-3-re@IEEE.ORG [mailto:owner-stds-802-3-re@IEEE.ORG] On
Behalf Of Hugh Barrass
Sent: Thursday, September 02, 2004 12:28 PM
To: STDS-802-3-RE@listserv.ieee.org
Subject: Re: [RE] What's wrong using FireWire as the home backbone?

>What is missing from FireWire that prevents it from solving the problems
of wired home networking?

1/ FireWire does not like to go further than 4.5m
2/ FireWire does not scale well - fixed amount of bandwidth is shared
amongst all devices on the network.
3/ FireWire is not Ethernet

Items 1 and 2 have been addressed by enhancements to the IEEE-1394
specification (FireWore over CAT5 and bridging). I'm not seeing quick market
uptake on these advances. Probably because of item 3. Ethernet is popular.
Independent of technical capabilities, the more popular an interconnect is
the more powerful it is. This is a basic property of networks Datacom and
otherwise.