What is the difference between thicknet and thinnet cables?

Answer 1

Thicknet or 10BASE5 is able to run 500 meters. Thinnet or 10BASE2 is able to run 185 meters. Thinnet cable has a smaller diameter (it is thinner cable) and is more flexible and so easier to work with than thicknet. In the old days you would run a thicknet cable in the ceiling as your network backbone and use vampire taps to attach thinnet cables ("drop cables") that would drop down into rooms in the office where they would connect to hubs. This setup is caled a bus topology. The problem was if that if any piece wasn't properly terminated or is any one cable broke then the whole network went down and you'd have to run around trying to locate the break.

Answer 2

Both are obsolete implementations of the Ethernet standard over coax cable. Specifically, thicknet (formally known as 10Base5) used RG8 cable while thinnet (formally known as 10Base2 used RG58. Both standards ran at 10Mbps, as indicated by the 10 in both their names but since 10Base5 used the thicker RG8 cable, it had a maximum cable length of 500 meters (indicated by the 5 at the end of its name) while the thinner 10Base2 had a maximum distance of 200 meters. The twisted-pair solution was known as 10BaseT and had (just like its more modern counterparts of 100BaseT and 1000BaseT, aka Gigabit Ethernet) a maximum cable length of only 100 meters.

Both 10Base2 and 10Base5, being coax cable, used what was called a bus topology while 10BaseT and its successors use a star topology. (To make things simpler, whenever I refer to 10BaseT, you can presume that it is also true for the successive twisted-pair standards as well.) Both ends of the coax network needed to be terminated with 50-Ohm resistors while there is no such requirement for 10BaseT.

To add a node to 10Base5, one used a "vampire tap" to tap into the cable. It was a device that wrapped around the thicknet cable and had a spike that penetrated the outer insulator, braided shield, inner core insulator, and finally made contact with the center conductor while there were additional spikes that stayed much shallower and interfaced with the shield as it was also used as the ground for the cable plant. With 10Base2, T-connectors were used between two lengths of coax cable and a computer (or printer or other such device) was attached to the third attachment of the T. 10Base2 could not have a new machine added to the network while the network was live because that would cause a break between the two terminated ends of the network, thus taking the entire system down and making people very unhappy (such as company Presidents). 10Base5 did not suffer from that issue as vampire taps could be attached to the cable plant at any time but care had to be taken to insure that the signal spike did not touch any part of the braided shield as that would take down the network until the problem was found and resolved.

10Base2 was much more economically priced as it was easier with which to work and was much lighter. It was also easier to hide in walls, behind desks, etc. than the thick, heavy, very stiff 10Base5. Network engineers (including me) were very happy when 10BaseT took off like wildfire and we could finally dump all this outdated coax stuff.

Also, with both 10Base2 and 10Base5, there was no concentrator or switch (both of which people very frequently incorrectly refer to as a hub) as the communication was all handled by the transceivers at each computer or other network-attached device. With the star topology of 10BaseT, a concentrator was typically used to terminate each connection and allow communication between stations.

All three standards operated in a Carrier Sense Multiple Access/Collision Detect (CSMA/CD) mode. That is actually still used today but is not noticeable because of the way that just about every network has done away with all their old traditional concentrators and replaced them with switches. However, that is not germane to this answer, so if you want to know more about that, feel free to drop me a line and I will be glad to discuss that with you.

Nowadays, 10Base2 and 10Base5 are very hard to find. (I haven't seen either in about 15 years now, thank goodness!) The most common use for coax cable now is television service, whether from the "cable company" (hmmm, I wonder from where they got that name! ;-) ) or from a satellite service.

I hope all this helps. If there is anything that is as clear as mud or you wish further details about any of this, feel free to drop me a line. I'm always glad to assist!

Answer 3

You would need a bridge or other device that can handle different media types.

Answer 4

Distance of transmission, as well as the diameter of cables.

Answer 5

This is a form of coaxial cable ,it is thicker than thinnet. The thicknet coaxial cable segments and can be upto 500 metres long.