Lossless Ethernet?

[Joachim Herbert]

50 TB/s. How could I stream my music without?

 

[IAtaman]

Because collisions can happen with two talkers attempting to transmit at the same time. Here, they may seem to also refer to switches overloading and dumping packets.

True, but collisions usually gets detected and corrupted data is retransmistted as Ethernet uses 32bit CRC in each frame. It does not guarantee data will arrive and arrive in order, but possibility of packet/frame loss does not make Ethernet lossy which implies non-perfect transmission of data. In other words, if frames are delivered, they are delivered without any data loss.

 

[Wicky]

UDP and TCP are not part of Ethernet... They exist independently of Ethernet... You could have a different scehme of transmission, the old Token Ring could carry TCP and UDP...As a matter of fact so could birds.. seriously.. Here:
RFC 2549: IP over Avian Carriers with Quality of Service

Ethernet belongs to the second Layer.
The term "lossy" is seldom (never) used in the context of packet loss.
A stretch in my opinion to call Ethernet "lossy".

Peace.

can settle on "packet loss"

 

[IAtaman]

can settle on "packet loss"

In Ethernet they are usually called Frames.

 

[khensu]

The proper terms in this context are ‘reliable’ (TCP) and ‘unreliable’ (UDP) delivery.

 

[Berwhale]

Yes, perhaps can be confusing. However I believe the term "lossy" is used in networking. But it's operating in a different sphere from "lossy" audio in terms of recording which is not the same thing as delivery.

It's certainly used when comparing 'lossless' Storage Area Networks (SAN) to 'lossy' Local Area Networks (LAN). I think it's one of the reasons some 'storage folk' struggle with iSCSI and FCoE (Fibre Channel over Ethernet).

 

[Berwhale]

Because collisions can happen with two talkers attempting to transmit at the same time. Here, they may seem to also refer to switches overloading and dumping packets.

My understanding is that collisions are unlikely with UTP/STP cabling and an Ethernet switch forming a star topology network. I guess the terminal and the switch could occasionally try to communicate at exactly the same time and give CSMA/CD something to do

 

[AlfaNovember]

Are you ready to hear a TCP joke?

 

[TonyJZX]

i think its really wrong to call tcp and udp lossless and lossy respectively... its not quite what they were designed for

BUT

there's been a few discussions about audiophile sata cables and ssd vs. hdd for audio and let me add this to the pile:

Curious Cables

Curious Cables have been designed with one thing in mind - to improve the sound quality of your audio system.

curiouscables.com

I think we have a box of sub 1m patch cables at work that we find too short to use for most practical purposes.

Also this company is from Queensland so you know all the good stuff comes from Queensland!

 

[JP]

Are you ready to hear a TCP joke?

Love it.

 

[amirm]

That doesn’t mean “lossy”, it relies on the exponential back-off algorithm to do re-transmission.

Ethernet is simply lossy because there’s no guarantee that the other end won’t dump your stuff, e.g. because of congestion.

What? You are repeating what I post.

 

[symphara]

What? You are repeating what I post.

No I’m not. In responding to someone asking why is Ethernet lossy, you wrote "Because collisions can happen with two talkers attempting to transmit at the same time.”. I wanted to be less blunt, but that is flatly wrong. Ethernet has a protocol for dealing with this situation, it will NOT cause loss of data.

What DOES cause loss of data is what you cagily refer to, using 'Here, they may seem to also refer’. Again, your understanding is faulty. This is precisely why Ethernet is lossy - overload on the receiver. Since Ethernet has no mechanism to deal with this case (and really, nothing is there up to TCP, which has the needed retransmission logic), data will be lost just about always because an Rx queue is simply full.

And man, mind your manners. I actually wrote Ethernet drivers.

 

[TonyJZX]

ethernet is neither lossy or lossless... its literally beyond this kind of discussion... if it were at all 'lossy' the zip files and jpegs you'd be downloading would be all corrupt otherwise

its like saying is 240v or 110v ac "lossy or lossless "

is bluetooth lossy or lossless? well its neither

given enough bandwidth and the appropriate codec it can be lossless