What is Thin Ethernet?

Thin Ethernet, popularly known as cheapernet or thinnet, is among the family of Ethernet standards that uses thinner coaxial cable as a transmission media. It is technically known as 10BASE-2. Here, 10 is the maximum throughput (10 Mbps), BASE denotes use of baseband transmission, and 2 refers to the maximum segment length of about 200 metres (precisely 185 metres).

This type of cabling allows a maximum of 30 stations to be connected to it by BNC connectors with 50 centimetres minimum gap between subsequent stations.

Features of Cable and Network

The salient features of 10BASE-2 Ethernet cabling are:

• Cable type − 10BASE-2 uses RG-58 A/U coaxial cable. It is thinner, more flexible, more economic and easier to install than the coaxial cable used in thick Ethernet.

• Transmission speed − The cable has 10 Mbps transmission speed.

• Distance limitations − The maximum segment length is 185 m and the minimum gap between stations is 50 cm.

• Station limit − The maximum number of stations that can be connected is restricted to 30.

• Encoding − Thinnet uses Manchester coding. A low-to-high transition in the middle of the bit period is encoded as binary 0 while a high-to-low transition in the middle of the bit period is encoded as binary 1.

• Connectors − It uses BNC T-connector for connecting with the stations network interface card (NIC) and also for joining cables.

• Termination − The thin coaxial cable is terminated by a 50 ohm resistor at both the ends.

Advantages and Disadvantages

Conclusion

Thin Ethernet (10BASE-2) was a popular low-cost networking solution using RG-58 coaxial cable that could connect up to 30 stations over 185 meters. While economical and simple to install, it has been largely replaced by more reliable twisted-pair Ethernet technologies due to its limitations in scalability and fault tolerance.