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 10-BASE-2. Here, 10 is the maximum throughput, i.e. 10 Mbps, BASE denoted 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 10-BASE-2 Ethernet cabling are −

• 10-BASE-2 use 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.

• The cable has 10 Mbps transmission speed.

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

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

• 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.

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

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

Thin Ethernet network is shown in the following diagram −