Networking tutorial for beginer and advanced user

Network Cable

Cable is the medium through which information usually moves from one network device to another device. Network cable is guided medium in transmission media.  There are different types of network cable which are commonly used in LANs. Which kind of cable we are choosing is dependent on network topology, size of network and network protocol.

To create a success full network it’s very important to understand character stick of different type of cable and how they are different from each other. What are the limitation with them, what could be maximum size of any particular type of cable and all other aspects?

Following are the characteristics of cables for making a good network

Segment and segment length:à A single network wire that connects one network device with another network device is called segment and length of this segment is called segment length.

Attenuation:à Attenuation is general term that refers to any reduction in strength of signals. Attenuation may occur with any type of signal weather it’s digital or analog. Some time it called loss, attenuation is natural consequence of signal transmission over long distance.

Bandwidth:à Bandwidth is generally use as synonym of data transfer rate. The amount of data that can be carried from one point to another point in given time period (generally one second) is known as bandwidth of medium.

Here one thing I must clear you that if its 100Mbps LAN than it doesn’t means your 100 MB data will copy from one location to another location in 1 second.  Here LAN speed is 100Mbps (megabit per second) and data size is 100 MB (megabyte) so multiply by 8 in your speed for calculating data transfer time in MB. I will explain about bit byte and other terms in other chapter.

Number of segment:à It defines Maximum number of segment in a network, how many segments can be there in one network for smooth functioning.

Interference/vulnerability/Cross talk:à A disturbance caused by electromagnetic signal in another network that create confusion and cross over each other is called cross talk.

For example you are talking with your friend over a landline phone and at same time someone else who lives next to your home is talking with his friend and you find you can hear their conversation and they can hear your conversation. When you try to identify problem you find that at pole your home’s phone cable was getting touched with next home phone cable due to any reason.

This is what we call cross talk in terms of network.

Cost:à When we talk about creating a network it’s very important to identify cost of network and in most of the case a big part of money goes for cabling so having a good idea of cost of cable is assurance of making a good network.

In next few post I will explain different type of cable, there uses and other detail about cables.