Phy?

[digitaloracle]

I was browsing some of the newer AMD boards yesterday and noticed that many of the etherent controllers had something called PHY, whch was sometimes noted to be external. What is this designation and what does it indicate?

 

[Capricorn]

That's a new one on me, but that's what makes networking an interesting topic. I Googled ethernet phy and got over 250000 hits, so it's not a secret. PHY refers to the PHYsical layer. That is, the actual phyical medium used to deliver the network traffic. Before 10/100 baseT stomped it, there used to be coaxial cables used to run network traffic within buildings. The coax was slightly thicker than a typical cable TV coax. Today's cable operators have the closest thing to that. The cable modem does the physical translation of the data from the coaxial cable to the twisted pair 10/100 baseT.

Best explanation I found (in a short time) was this article at lightreading, which leads me to believe it's about delivering 10 GB fiber-based Ethernet to the destop. It might be external so that you can hook different adapters to it. One would be today's 10/100 baseT ethernet cables, although I wouldn't be surprized if that was built-in and other physical types of network delivery require external adapters. My guess is all this has to do with the telephone companies push to deliver fiber into the home. With 10 GB/sec transfers, streaming movies (in HD), renting console or PC games over the net, etc would be doable (think NetFlix on demand).

 

[gab00n]

I think it will be a while before we see that kind of speed delivered to homes, major corporations would definitely be interested in 10GB/sec transfer rates though.

 

[Capricorn]

True enough about the speed, but Verizon is already delivering their FIOS fiber optic service for home use. My number isn't "In" yet. The current prices are for the various dowload/upload combos are:

Up to 5 Mbps/2 Mbps $39.95/mo
Up to 15 Mbps/2 Mbps $49.95/mo
Up to 30 Mbps/5 Mbps $199.95/mo