10BASE2 (also known as
cheapernet,
thin Ethernet,
thinnet, and
thinwire) is a variant of
Ethernet that uses thin
coaxial cable (
RG-58A/U or similar, as opposed to the thicker
RG-8 cable used in
10BASE5 networks), terminated with
BNC connectors. During the mid to late 1980s this was the dominant 10 Mbit/s Ethernet standard, but due to the immense demand for high speed networking, the low cost of
Category 5 Ethernet cable, and the popularity of
802.11 wireless networks, both 10BASE2 and
10BASE5 have become increasingly
obsolete, though they still exist in some locations.