Networking cable/fiber V2.0

Philip Schorr

Second hour

(added information in red)

Fiber optic cable: what is it?

• A networking cable with glass fiber strands in it

• Cables reach far with high bandwidth

• Less susceptible to electric interference

• More expensive.

Fiber

• Capable of high speed connections (up to and over 100 Mbps)

• Fiber network cards available

• Rapidly replacing normal networks because of high-speed capability

Fiber history

• 1790’s – Telegraph invented

• 1880 – Telephone patented

• 1920’s – Tubes used to transmit TV images

• 1954 - covers on a bare fiber with a transparent cladding of a lower refractive index

• 1960’s – Glass clad fibers

• 1964 – Needed a new type of glass

• 1970 – New type of glass fused with silica proved to be what was needed

Fiber history (Roman numeral 2)

• 1972 – Adding titanium to a fiber core

• 1973 – Special chemicals began surfacing

• 1977 – First mass use of fiber cords

What does it do?

• Networking fiber transfers data through pulses of light in glass through the cord.

• Used in both computers and phone systems.• Transfers thousands of times the data as copper

wire• Really really really expensive.• Expensive because the heads are hard to put on the

wire.• Light stays in glass strand because the glass strands

are made of a glass core with a reflective coating.

Fiber cost

• 15ft. Roughly $35

• 30ft. Roughly $42

• 100ft. Roughly $80

• All costs where found here, if you can find better prices, take them and run.

Networking cables

Part 2

Types of cables

• Cat5 twisted pair cables

• Cat5e twisted pair cables

• Cat6 twisted pair cables

• Cat6a twisted pair cables

• Coaxial cable

Cable speeds

Cat1 1Mbps (phone only)

Cat2 4Mbps (local talk and phone only)

Cat3 16Mbps (10BaseT Ethernet)

Cat4 20Mbps (token ring (rarely used))

Cat5 100-1000Mbps (100BaseT Ethernet)

Cat5e 1000 Mbps (gigabit Ethernet)

Cat6 10,000 Mbps (gigabit Ethernet)

Cat6a 10Gbps

Coaxial Unlisted (Mbps)

Cat#cables

• These cables consist of 4 pairs of twisted wires (prompting the name twisted wire cable)

• These cables come in both shielded and unshielded

• The more twists per inch the faster it can transfer data

• Twisted cables reduce crosstalk (reduced communication between wires) and interference

• Cat5 – Cat6a can run about 330ft. Before signal loss

Cat#cable cont’d

• They make use of a RJ-45 connector– It looks like a large phone Jack

• Shielded wires are wrapped in foil to keep from damage from electric interference

Coaxial cable

• Has a single copper conductor centered in the wire

• Has a plastic layer between the conductor and a braided metal shield

• Difficult to install

• Highly resistant to signal interference

• Supports long cable lengths

• Common connection is the Bayone-Neil-Concelman connection

Types of Coaxial cable

• Thin Ethernet– Runs 10Base2

– 2 = Maximum roughly 200m

– Actual maximum cable length 185m

• Thick Ethernet– Runs 10Base5

– 5 = max length roughly 500m

– Actual max cable length 500m

– Has an extra plastic shield to keep moisture out

– Perfect for long bus networks

Regular networking cable cost

• Cat5 cable, 35ft. - $15

• Cat5e cable, 5ft. - $5

• Cat6 cable, 5ft. - $3

• Cat6a cable, 5ft. - $4.50

• Coaxial cable, 50ft. - $17

Networking wire history

• 1844 – Telegraph sent the first message

• 1840’s – Baud merges the type writer and telegraph to dispose of Morse code

• 1966 – American standard code for information exchange created

• 1970’s – Xerox invents the Ethernet

• 1979 – multiple companies tried to standardize Ethernet connection– 1980 – first standard

connection made by a coaxial cable

• Ethernet standardized in 1983

History continued

• 1984 – IBM introduces token ring for faster ethernet– Twisted pair connection

• Second connections ran at 100MHz

• 1985 – CCIA started developing a standard for wiring

• 1987 – Twisted pair wires where widely used

• 1990 – 10BaseT standard created

• 1991 – cabling standard created

• 2001 – cat5e introduced

• 2002 – Cat6 introduced

• 2008 – Cat6a released

Sources

• Mr. Bennig

• http://www.buy.com

• http://www.lanshack.com/fiber-optic-tutorial-network.aspx

• http://www.ciscopress.com/articles/article.asp?p=170740

• http://compnetworking.about.com/od/ethernet/g/cat6-cables.htm

• http://www.newegg.com/

• http://fcit.usf.edu/network/chap4/chap4.htm

• http://www.datacottage.com/nch/cablinghist.htm