[TenTec] Why Ethernet?

[Grant Youngman]

> fair level of performance for voice rag chewing with a
> broadband Internet connection

Fair at best.  This is partly my business -- and there are many times 
when I simply have to abandon my IP voice connection over VPN 
over internet to the head office and pick up the phone.  In 
conference calls, for example, it is usually immediately obvious if a 
caller is using a VoIP connection over an internet based VPN.  
Often gets worse than a bad cell phone connection.  I think (hope) 
the internet will get there, but I also think it is going to be a while.  
(You just can't control when little Johnny is going to start 
downloading music files with big frame sizes).  

> far more appealing now is the ability to have your own
> dedicated fiber optic or microwave link to your remote
> gear on the hill/mountain 

Another qustion to ask there is whether Ethernet protocols are the 
right tool for that job or the job of running a signal up the tower?   A 
simple high speed serial protocol would work quite well in some 
applications.

> While USB may seem to be the heir
> apparent to RS232, it really is not the best choice
> which will allow for the most versatility.

I think part of the issue (with this question in this thread) is that there 
are at least two intermixed discussions.  One is that serial async is 
old, the connectors are the wrong shape, the cables are (relatively) 
fat and our control PC's  have an ethernet or USB connection so 
why doesn't the radio? -- a near term "what kind of cable to use 
issue".   I'm having a hard time getting excited about the question in 
that form.

The other is the forward looking and much more interesting vision of 
the distributed radio (and/or distributed shack), where the "radios" 
are RF-head devices that serve up essentially digitized RF/IF for a 
smart backend which will do some really interesting things with both 
multi-radio signal processing and station control.  And to your point 
about USB in that context, I fully agree.

In any case, I think there are interesting times coming ...

Grant/NQ5T