Networking Basics - More Cables & Network Protocol

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Networking Basics - More cables

More Ethernet Cabling

-Now to familiarize you with more on the Ethernet and it's cabling we need to look at the 10's.

· 10Base2, is considered the thin Ethernet, thinnet, and thinwire which uses light coaxial cable to create a 10 Mbps network. The cable segments in this network cant be over 185 meters in length. These cables connect with the BNC connector. Also as a note these unused connection must have a terminator, which will be a 50-ohm terminator.

10Base5, this is considered a thicknet and is used with coaxial cable arrangement such as the BNC connector. The good side to the coaxial cable is the high-speed transfer and cable segments can be up to 500 meters between nodes/workstations. You will typically see the same speed as the 10Base2 but larger cable lengths for more versatility.
10BaseT, the �T� stands for twisted as in UTP (Unshielded Twisted Pair) and uses this for 10Mbps of transfer. The down side to this is you can only have cable lengths of 100 meters between nodes/workstations. The good side to this network is they are easy to set up and cheap! This is why they are so common an ideal for small offices or homes.
100BaseT, is considered Fast Ethernet uses STP (Shielded Twisted Pair) reaching data transfer of 100Mbps. This system is a little more expensive but still remains popular as the 10BaseT and cheaper than most other type networks. This on of course would be the cheap fast version.
10BaseF, this little guy has the advantage of fiber optics and the F stands for just that. This arrangement is a little more complicated and uses special connectors and NIC's along with hubs to create its network. Pretty darn neat and not to cheap on the wallet.

Networking Hardware, The Bigger Stuff

-Well most of you have seen a hub somewhere along your way and most likely was in the office or even in Wal-Mart. You can pick up a Hub and Networking cards very cheap these days and be in business in no time.

Repeaters, if you have ever used a HAM Radio you know what a repeater is and its has the same basic concept in the computer network. You will see two flavors of repeaters in the networking world such as the amplifier, and signal regenerating repeaters.

Amplifier Repeater, has the job of picking up the incoming signal in the network and amplifies it for the rest of the journey. This does not make changes to the signal and will send regardless of its integrity. In other words the signal could be awful to begin with and the repeater will simply send that bad signal out anyway.
Signal Regenerating Repeater, you knew this one was coming and it take the original signal and cleans it up. The signal will be sent out only with the good parts involved for better integrity in your network.

-Now we need to see some more common parts such as the hub, bridge, router, and a gateway.

Hub, you will see the hub in most small office setting and even the bigger offices may have these little guys hanging around. This allows all your nodes/workstations to be interconnected at one central place. Probably the simplest way to go.
Bridge, the idea of the bridge is to connect two or more LAN or LAN segments.
Router, no this isn't a wood shop term but now used in networks. The idea of the router is basically a mail sorter. This little guys needs to decide which is the best way to send information that is addressed in the network.
Gateway, the idea of the gateway is to connect different type networks to each other. This comes down to what protocols a network uses and must be reformatted for that network in order to pass the information along. Neat Stuff?

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