It is a widely acknowledged fact, that along with enterprise hardware and software, individuals and or companies must pay attention, to their existing cabling infrastructure. Cabling covers many an aspect of wiring and or connectivity, and there are many different cables used in the fields of telecommunication and computers.
A very oft seen and much used cable, which forms a part of many a cabling operation, is the Unshielded Twisted Pair Cable. This breed of cable is commonly referred to as the UTP variety, and comes in five different categories. The 1st category is a voice only form, and works as an efficient telephone wire. Next in line comes the Data to 4 Mbps, which is centric to local talk. The 3rd category of this major constituent of cabling showcases Data to 10 Mbps, for Ethernet. The 4th category constitutes Data to 20 Mbps, for the 16 Mbps Token Ring. Last but not the least comes the Data to 100 Mbps for fast Ethernet.
There is a small drawback though, associated with UTP cabling, and this disadvantage relates to, it being susceptible to radio and electrical frequency interference. The answer to this problem lies in the Shielded Twisted Pair Cable. This STP cable is suitable for cabling environments having electrical interference, and is more often than not used on networks using Token Ring topology.
Fiber optic cabling and coaxial cabling are two other areas of cabling which need a mention. The former transmits light rather than electronic signals, and is the standard for connecting networks between buildings. The reason for its wide use is its immunity to electrical interference, as also lighting and moisture. The latter boasts of a single copper conductor at its centre, and a plastic layer provides the necessary insulation. Coaxial cabling showcases two types of cables, namely thick and thin, both of which carry Ethernet signals. The former has a specification of 10Base5, while the latter conforms to 10Base2.
Cabling infrastructure has a major role to play when it comes to planning network upgrades, and it is these rarely seen passive components, that work faithfully, quite literally behind the scene.  

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 21st, 2008 at 4:43 pm and is filed under The art of cabling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.