What if we could reinvent networking from the ground up—no collisions, no IPv4 exhaustion, no centralized configuration—just a clean, scalable, self-managing system? Introducing Orbula: a fresh protocol built on logical-ring/physical-star topology using standard CAT6 cabling.
Each host connects through a relay-style device that seamlessly links it into a ring when powered and ready. Nodes communicate using simple but powerful hardware signals: “Clear to Send” and “Packet Ready” lines coordinate direct neighbor-to-neighbor transmission, eliminating contention and packet collision entirely. No CSMA. No waiting for a token. Just smooth, orderly flow.
Addresses are built from a pair—your MAC and your gateway’s MAC—making each node’s identity globally unique and routing-friendly. Gateways stitch rings into higher-level rings, forming a natural hierarchy (Department → Company → City → Region → Global), avoiding routing loops and allowing fast, fixed-size packet forwarding (e.g., 1MB fixed-size packets).
This isn’t just another Ethernet variant—it’s an alternative vision for how networks could work.
Would love input—has this been tried before? Would it be worth prototyping?
Yep I had ChatGPT help me condense a lot of detail down to an elevator pitch.
Each host only talks to it’s upstream neighbor. The connection is mediated by a “clear to send” signal, likewise that same host only listens to it’s downstream neighbor mediated by a “I have a packet signal” data flows around the ring as each neighbor becomes free to accept it.
So you’d want to dedicate two pairs to this? As in half the wires? For something that is already dealt with by doing full duplex?
As in another host? So it’s p2p? How does it scale?
TBH your idea sounds like a mixup of rs232 and token ring.
I really don’t want to stifle innovation, perhaps you could draw it up? I really don’t get the logical-ring stuff
t+ and T- to upstream neighbor (2) + a single wire from upstream to tell you to send (3), R+ and R- (5) to down stream neighbor + a single wire to let downstream know when you can receive from them.(6) And a pair to control a relay in what would be like a token ring MAU. Token ring is also a logical ring and a physical star: All the physical cables come to a central hub (physical star) but the machines are connected
Logical Ring Physical Star +-->[ r t ]--> [r t] -->[ r t ]--> [r t] --> [ r t]--+ [ machine1 ] ===== cat 6 ==== | mau |=====cat6== [ machine 3 ] | | [ machine2 ]====== cat 6 ====| |====cat 6 == [ machine 4 ] +-----------------------------------------------------+until the last machine loops around to connect to the first.
Is it anything like token ring? No, The difference is no token to lose, No ring master or deputy ring master to lead things- everyone just plays along according to basic rules. Any machine can move data to it’s upstream neigbor at any time that neighbor is ready to take it, no one machine at a time getting to talk. So it’s not like token ring. Also unlike Ethernet, you can connect any number of machines in a ring: 5 for a small office, 20 for a department of a large firm, 200 for every employee of a firm, 2000 for all the offices of a company or a part of a neighborhood. Since machines are not contending for bandwidth there is no collision, no backdown and resend.
Rings of machines are connected to bigger rings via gateways - which also have their own way of assigning addresses to each of their ports.
Sorry my drawing did not come out well.
Draw.io
Drawing it up… : ^) Sorry, I am not a very good artist and it’s hard getting AI to give you exactly what you want when you want something exact.