10BASE5

10BASE5 vampire tap Medium Attachment Unit (transceiver)
10BASE5 transceivers, cables, and tapping tool

10BASE5 (also known as thick Ethernet or thicknet) was the first commercially available variant of Ethernet. The technology was standardized in 1982[1] as IEEE 802.3. 10BASE5 uses a thick and stiff coaxial cable[2] up to 500 meters (1,600 ft) in length. Up to 100 stations can be connected to the cable using vampire taps and share a single collision domain with 10 Mbit/s of bandwidth shared among them. The system is difficult to install and maintain.

10BASE5 was superseded by much cheaper and more convenient alternatives: first by 10BASE2 based on a thinner coaxial cable (1985), and then, once Ethernet over twisted pair was developed, by 10BASE-T (1990) and its successors 100BASE-TX and 1000BASE-T. In 2003, the IEEE 802.3 working group deprecated 10BASE5 for new installations.[3]

  1. ^ von Burg, Urs; Kenney, Martin (December 2003). "Sponsors, Communities, and Standards: Ethernet vs. Token Ring in the Local Area Networking Business" (PDF). Industry & Innovation. 10 (4): 351–375. doi:10.1080/1366271032000163621. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 6, 2011. Retrieved 17 February 2014.
  2. ^ Belden. "Product 9880" (PDF). catalog.belden.com. Belden. Retrieved April 8, 2023.
  3. ^ IEEE 802.3-2005 8. Medium attachment unit and baseband medium specifications, type 10BASE5