10BASE2

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10BASE2 (also known as cheapernet,^[1] thin Ethernet, thinnet, and thinwire) is a variant of Ethernet that uses thin coaxial cable terminated with BNC connectors to build a local area network. During the mid to late 1980s, this was the dominant 10 Mbit/s Ethernet standard.

The use of twisted pair networks competed with 10BASE2's use of a single coaxial cable. In 1988, Ethernet over twisted pair was introduced, running at the same speed of 10 Mbit/s. In 1995, the Fast Ethernet standard upgraded the speed to 100 Mbit/s, and no such speed improvement was ever made for thinnet. By 2001, prices for Fast Ethernet cards had fallen to under $50. By 2003, Wi-Fi networking equipment was widely available and affordable.

Due to the immense demand for high-speed networking, the low cost of Category 5 cable, and the popularity of 802.11 wireless networks, both 10BASE2 and 10BASE5 have become increasingly obsolete, though devices still exist in some locations.^[2] As of 2011, IEEE 802.3 has deprecated this standard for new installations.^[3]