However — unlike copper twisted pair — the bandwidth current fiber media can carry is nearly limited by nothing but the optics at each end.
replyThat doesn't solve the chicken and egg problem.
replyWhat probably would is something like having PCIe and USB to 1Gbps fiber adapters that cost $5.
You've been able to get Intel X520 NICs [0], with transceivers included for ~40USD on Newegg for a long time. This is a little more than double the price of Newegg's cheapest single-port 10/100/1000 copper card, but even the cheapest available such card is three times your "chicken and egg"-solving price point.
replyI suspect the combination of the absence of cheap-o all-in-one AP/router combo boxes with any SFP+ cages and fiber cabling's reputation of being extremely fragile have much more to do with its scarcity at the extremely low end of networking gear than anything else.
[0] This is a two-port SFP+ PCI Express card
In practice though 10G via copper requires pretty perfect terminations. The slightest error leads to crosstalk issues.
replyYmmv. I've got a mix of cheap premade patch cables and some I crimped from solid core, all cat5e, all holding 10gbe totally happily. I suspect that only works because they're a meter or two long but that reaches across the rack.
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