10BASE5

10BASE5 vampire tap Medium Attachment Unit (transceiver)

10BASE5 (also known as thick Ethernet or thicknet) is a version of Ethernet providing 10 Mbit/s bandwidth over a thick coaxial cable having a maximum length of 500 m (1,600 ft). It was the first commercially available version of Ethernet. The technology was standardized first by Ecma International in early 1982 based on an IEEE draft standard, then by IEEE in 1983 as IEEE 802.3.[1][2] Up to 100 stations can be connected to the cable in a single collision domain. The standard specifies CSMA/CD to resolve collisions.

10BASE5 was superseded by much cheaper and more convenient alternatives: first by 10BASE2 based on a thinner coaxial cable (1985), and then, once Ethernet over twisted pair was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]

Name origination

The name 10BASE5 is derived from several characteristics of the physical medium. The 10 refers to its transmission speed of 10 Mbit/s. The BASE is short for baseband signaling (as opposed to broadband[a]), and the 5 stands for the maximum segment length of 500 meters (1,600 ft).[4]

The physical layer

Cabling and Connectors

Schematic of a 10Base5 network segment

For its physical layer, 10BASE5 uses cable similar to RG-8/U coaxial cable but with extra braided shield. This is a stiff, 0.4-inch (10 mm)[5] diameter cable with an impedance of 50 ohms, a solid center conductor, a foam insulating filler, a shielding braid, and an outer jacket. The outer jacket is often yellow-to-orange fluorinated ethylene propylene (for fire resistance) so it often is called yellow cable, orange hose, or sometimes humorously frozen yellow garden hose.[6] 10BASE5 coaxial cables had a maximum length of 500 meters (1,600 ft). Up to 100 nodes could be connected to a 10BASE5 segment.[7]

Transceiver nodes can be connected to cable segments with N connectors, or via a vampire tap, which allows new nodes to be added while existing connections are live. A vampire tap clamps onto the cable, a hole is drilled through the outer shielding, and a spike is forced to pierce the outer three layers and contact the inner conductor while other spikes bite into the outer braided shield. Care is required to keep the outer shield from touching the spike; installation kits include a coring tool to drill through the outer layers and a braid pick to clear stray pieces of the outer shield.

Transceivers should be installed only at precise 2.5-meter intervals. This distance was chosen to not correspond to the signal's wavelength; this ensures that the reflections from multiple taps are not in phase.[8] These suitable points are marked on the cable with black bands. The cable is required to be one continuous run; T-connections are not allowed.

Electrical Termination

As is the case with most other high-speed buses, segments must be terminated at each end. For coaxial-cable-based Ethernet, each end of the cable has a 50 ohm resistor attached. Typically, this resistor is built into a male N connector and attached to the cable's end just past the last device. With termination missing, or if there is a break in the cable, the signal on the bus will be reflected, rather than dissipated when it reaches the end. This reflected signal is indistinguishable from a collision and prevents communication.

Signaling

Disadvantages

Stations are connected to the cable using vampire taps. This complicates adding new stations to the network because of the need to pierce the cable accurately. The cable is stiff and difficult to bend around corners. One improper connection can take down the whole network and finding the source of the trouble is difficult.[9]

This type of network was potentially more expensive to install and maintain than networks based on twisted pair cabling, since the latter might have already been present in sufficient quality as the phone network in office buildings.[10]

See also

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Notes

  1. ^ The choice for broadband as the opposite is exemplified by Ethernet standards such as 10BROAD36. Later, the term broadband came to be used more commonly for different concepts, and the terms passband or modulated would be used to describe non-baseband signaling.

References

  1. ^ Duffy, Jim (May 20, 2013). "10 things you may not know about Ethernet". Network World. Foundry. Retrieved November 27, 2025.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  2. ^ "Ethernet Through the Years: Celebrating the Technology's 50th Year of Innovation". IEEE Standards Association. United States: IEEE. May 24, 2023. Retrieved May 19, 2026.
  3. ^ IEEE 802.3-2005 8. Medium attachment unit and baseband medium specifications, type 10BASE5
  4. ^ Stallings, William (1993). Local and Metropolitan Area Networks. Macmillan Publishing Company. pp. 107. ISBN 0-02-415465-2.
  5. ^ Belden. "Product 9880" (PDF). catalog.belden.com. Belden. Retrieved April 8, 2023.
  6. ^ Mike Meyers (2004). All-in-One Networking+ Certification Exam Guide (3rd ed.). McGraw-Hill. p. 79.
  7. ^ "5-4-3 rule". Archived from the original on June 11, 2010. Retrieved June 30, 2010.
  8. ^ Technical Committee on Computer Communications of the IEEE Computer Society (1985), IEEE Standard 802.3-1985, IEEE, p. 121, ISBN 0-471-82749-5
  9. ^ Urd Von Burg; Martin Kenny (December 2003). "Sponsors, Communities, and Standards: Ethernet vs. Token Ring in the Local Area Networking Business" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on June 18, 2012. Retrieved March 25, 2012.
  10. ^ Stallings, William (1993). Local and metropolitan area networks. New York: MacMillan. p. 120. ISBN 0-02-415465-2. Retrieved May 19, 2026.

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