Talk:Plesiochronous digital hierarchy/Archive 1

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Re spelling of plesiochronous - lots of references on the Internet spell it the same way, so I'd say you have spelt it correctly. Graham Chapman


Thanks for the excellent article. It's amazing how many darn protocols there are in data communications these days!

I added the "Mbps" and "Kbps" abbreviations for two reasons:

  • they are both commonly used in data communications documentation
  • in my experience, confusing megabytes/second and megabits per second when talking about data communications is potentially disastrous because there is an order of magnitude difference.

My fast/wide Ultra SCSI link between controller and disk array is 40 megabytes/second - if it were megabits then my applications would grind to a halt! Using the term "megs" risks confusion between bits and bytes in an area where it is necessary to be precise.

With some protocols, such as Ethernet, communications people commonly talk always in megabits/second, whereas with SCSI they commonly talk in megabytes/second. Often they are two separate groups of people who don't mix a lot, but it is dangerous to assume that the standard used within your group is generally applicable. Graham Chapman