Editing 454: Rewiring

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At the time, people who took their internet access seriously would have preferred that at least some of the phone wiring and phone jacks in their residences were {{w|Ethernet}} ({{w|Cat-5}} or {{w|Cat-6}}) wiring and ({{w|Modular_connector#8P8C|RJ45}}) jacks for providing wired internet access throughout their home, or in this case, to their neighbor's home, so that they wouldn't have to resort to {{w|Wi-Fi}}, which was then slower and less reliable than a wired connection.
 
At the time, people who took their internet access seriously would have preferred that at least some of the phone wiring and phone jacks in their residences were {{w|Ethernet}} ({{w|Cat-5}} or {{w|Cat-6}}) wiring and ({{w|Modular_connector#8P8C|RJ45}}) jacks for providing wired internet access throughout their home, or in this case, to their neighbor's home, so that they wouldn't have to resort to {{w|Wi-Fi}}, which was then slower and less reliable than a wired connection.
  
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The title text suggests that it shows a fanciful way of converting analog phone lines to {{w|digital}} ethernet lines by simply faxing an ethernet cable, since a fax machine is a tool for {{w|digitizing|converting}} analog content into digital.
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The title text suggests it shows a fanciful way of converting analog phone lines to {{w|digital}} ethernet lines by simply faxing an ethernet cable, since a fax machine is a tool for {{w|digitizing|converting}} analog content into digital.
  
 
Since the faxing of the ethernet cable is apparently successful, the comic is not really about the conversion, but is instead a subtle {{w|computer network}} joke about {{w|Tunneling protocol|tunneling}}, whereby you can embed one kind of network access protocol within a very different protocol. Herein lies the humor: [[Cueball]] and [[Megan]] are apparently under the impression that they can achieve a faster connection by tunneling a high-speed protocol (ethernet) through a slower (landline telephone service) one. Generally speaking, this is not true. The only exception is when embedding a compressed data stream within a non-compressed standard. The performance boosts, however, are typically modest for {{w|lossless compression}}, and not the orders of magnitude difference our novices apparently hope for.
 
Since the faxing of the ethernet cable is apparently successful, the comic is not really about the conversion, but is instead a subtle {{w|computer network}} joke about {{w|Tunneling protocol|tunneling}}, whereby you can embed one kind of network access protocol within a very different protocol. Herein lies the humor: [[Cueball]] and [[Megan]] are apparently under the impression that they can achieve a faster connection by tunneling a high-speed protocol (ethernet) through a slower (landline telephone service) one. Generally speaking, this is not true. The only exception is when embedding a compressed data stream within a non-compressed standard. The performance boosts, however, are typically modest for {{w|lossless compression}}, and not the orders of magnitude difference our novices apparently hope for.

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