Why are there no USB-C enabled routers?

[L1Q]

With recent moves to USB-C in a lot of devices like phones, laptops, and peripherals that often have no other connectivity we are kind of moving to the age of dongles and adapter for RJ-45 are getting increasingly popular.

So people are buying an adapter to connect their laptop or phone to a wired network.

So here is a thought: why is there no internet router devices with USB-C interface?

 

Benefits of such device:

- could be used as a host for storage and peripherals like cellular modems, webcams, and printers for diverse feature set (basically what some routers are capable of with custom firmware project such as OpenWrt)

- could be used as a peripheral device for a phone, PC, console or other classes of devices connected with USB-C cable directly to eliminate the need of dongles and potentially reduce sizes of device that would otherwise use RJ-45 port.

 

Yeah, USB specs allow for way shorter ranges than ethernet cables can allow, but for wide range of applications cables up to 8 meters long would be enough.

 

So are there such devices and if no, why?

[GoldenLag]

The short answer is due to the ethernet's way larger bandwhith and ability to be run into a switch to get even more ethernet cables without sacrifising speed on the induvidual cable due to the very high bandwhith. 

 

Also pretty luch all USB c devices use wifi instead. And for applications on devices that only have USB C ports usually 5ghz wifi is enough.

 

And for those who need extra due to workload usually have a docking dongle using thunderbolt or USB 3.0 or 3.1

[WereCatf]

16 minutes ago, L1Q said:

- could be used as a host for storage and peripherals like cellular modems, webcams, and printers for diverse feature set (basically what some routers are capable of with custom firmware project such as OpenWrt)

Don't need either USB-C or OpenWRT for that.

[Lurick]

Well just the first thing that comes to mind is distance. USB-C has a maximum recommended distance of about 15 meters whereas ethernet can do 100 meters. Additionally you have cost for running a whole new set of cables, infrastructure, etc. within the home and then you have to deal with backwards compatibility as well.

[beersykins]

That sounds like a waste of r&d time when you can just leverage wireless.

[thething55]

To the best of my knowledge, Intel hasn't included the Ethernet standard or any networking standards into the usb-c specification. This means that the only way you could do something like this would be with an active cable that electronically converted the usb/thunderbolt signal into a a protocol such as ethernet.

This would likely result in long "active"cables like what you see in 2M Thunderbolt 3 cables now. Maybe even larger.

 

The RJ45 is it's own standard that has been around for years and has managed to remain backwards compatable through generations, a PC from 10 or 15 years ago would likely still physically be able to connect to a modern router or switch for example. Getting thousands of venders to swap to a new physical standard would be tough, slow and expensive. Most enterprise/commercial and even some home users wouldn't want to swap anyway.

 

Finally, in my opinion the type c standard isn't suitable for something like ethernet anyway as it doesn't make use of any retainer clip making it riskly for use anywhere important and the length of the active connector you would need would likely result in you breaking something if you tugged vertically on the connector (something that often happens, especially in more commercial environments) Also, Ethernet cables are think cables as their pairs/shieldings need to be good for high speed over long distance. You would need a fairly large cable as well as a large connector for it to work to ethernet standards.

 

Instead, I would much rather see RJ45 remain on hardware devices such as routers and switches and just see a spec change for usb-d or whatever comes next that would allow for an RJ45 to USB-D cable. If such a thing did exist then I would suspect that it would be a pricey cable for the active electronics, fairly short with a short maximum length for the standard and unlikely to go faster then 100mb/1000mb

[L1Q]

For both arguments of "usb is not an internet standard" and "we need new infrastructure" consider using your smartphone as a modem for your PC over usb-c. It's essentially the same: you phone implements "internet over usb" in software and cases where this make sense are not workspaces where ehternet cables are usually run by pro technicians. 

 

Quote

for applications on devices that only have USB C ports usually 5ghz wifi is enough

So my answer so far would conclude in this: USB-C to RJ-45 adapters are in low enough demand that adding a couple USB-C ports to router would be unreasonable.

[Lurick]

4 minutes ago, L1Q said:

For both arguments of "usb is not an internet standard" and "we need new infrastructure" consider using your smartphone as a modem for your PC over usb-c. It's essentially the same: you phone implements "internet over usb" in software and cases where this make sense are not workspaces where ehternet cables are usually run by pro technicians. 

Good luck plugging two dozen things into a single phone over USB-C and having it provide enough bandwidth and decent latency for most of that stuff to operate.

[L1Q]

3 minutes ago, Lurick said:

Good luck plugging two dozen things into a single phone over USB-C and having it provide enough bandwidth and decent latency for most of that stuff to operate.

bandwidth and latency on a phone are properties outside of scope here, I am not talking about phone internet, but the example of internet over USB-C

[beersykins]

18 minutes ago, L1Q said:

bandwidth and latency on a phone are properties outside of scope here,

So networking properties are outside the scope of your networking discussion.  Riight.  You're just avoiding his point.

 

These implementations have been around in previous USB versions for years.  You can already tether over USB 2 or Bluetooth, printers can already be shared via USB or Ethernet.  There's little reason to dump millions into developing usb3 only networking equipment when there's already significantly cheaper alternative, and zero existing market penetration.

[L1Q]

28 minutes ago, beersykins said:

networking properties are outside the scope

Compare networking properties of a USB-C to RJ-45 adapter to networking properties of what could be described as "software implementation of such adapter on a router hardware". So yeah networking properties of mobile wireless networks are outside of scope when talking about wired communication standards/protocols.

28 minutes ago, beersykins said:

usb3 only networking equipment

Ok, this is a huge miscommunication. What I mean is normal router that has common networking connectivity including, but not limiting to RJ-45 and wifi, but with USB-C capabilities ready to be used directly with those devices you would buy a dongle for.