Transmission Media

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Hello. My name is Dustin and today will be continuing our beginner network infrastructure course with transmission media. Let's get started.

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So there's a few different types of transmission media and networking that you should be familiar with.

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The 1st 1 is Ethernet or twisted pair. Next, we've got co axial, the last type of transmission media we're going to talk about. And this video is fiber or optic cables. Let's get started.

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The main form of network communications you'll see in enterprise environments, especially local offices and buildings, is going to be twisted Pair Ethernet. You've probably seen these before, hooking up your computer home router or gaming system.

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There are two types of Ethernet cable, both shielded and unshielded. Unshielded twisted pair or U T. P, for short is cheaper and lighter than shielded, twisted pair or STP for short,

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so it's commonly used for patch panels and home networking.

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Straight through cables are probably the most common type of network cable. You'll encounter these air used to connect computing devices to hubs, switches or routers.

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Crossover cables are used to connect computing devices directly to each other.

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There are many different categories of Ethernet cable that you should be aware of.

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These typically represent the speed supported by the cable, and we'll discuss these in the future is fine.

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There's also a few different types of connectors used on twisted pair cables.

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STP vs UT P a shielded cable or shielded twisted pair. STP cable has an outside layer or shield of conductive material around the internal conductors, which needs to be grounded to cancel the effect of E. M. I or electromagnetic interference.

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The conductive shield can reflect or conduct external interference away without affecting the signals of the internal conductor.

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Therefore, shielded Ethernet cables are usually used to protect signals from E. M. I over the length of the cable run,

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so it results in faster transmission speeds and fewer data errors.

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Unshielded means no additional shielding like meshes or aluminum foil er used, and that's the top picture there.

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Because of this unshielded twisted Ethernet cables are also called you TP or unshielded twisted pair,

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and they're typically lighter, more flexible and cheaper than STP.

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These Ethernet cables are designed to cancel E M. I with the way that the pair's air actually twisted inside the cables. So compared with shielded cables,

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unshielded cables, provide much less protection, but they do provide some. Still,

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these cables performances are often degraded when he mayes president. So if

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you decide to run cables in the ceiling of your office and you have fluorescent lights or anything that may affect, it might be a good idea to use STP cabling.

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Typically, most cables that you purchased today are going to be straight through cables

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these air used to connect in devices like your printers, gaming consoles, laptops, computers, all that stuff to networking equipment like your wireless routers, switches and hubs.

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Crossover cables can be used to connect like devices to other like devices. So that's like if you wanted to connect to computers directly to each other or two routers directly to each other.

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These air made by crossing over the twisted pairs on each end, like the diagram shown here. So you've got your green one and two connected to three and four on the other side, and your orange three and six are connected to our I'm sorry. One and two green are connected. Three and six, screen three and six orange or connected to one in two orange.

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Many devices today, though support the auto M D I X capability,

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where a patch cable can be used in place of a crossover cable or crossover could be using in place of Ah, patch cable

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so you don't need ah toe have, ah specific cable as much anymore as long as the devices support it.

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So there's two main types of connections for twisted pair cabling, Um,

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and the two most common. He'll run into RJ 45 which is used for computers and networking devices. You're probably familiar with it. It's, ah, wider connector, a little bit bigger and the other one that you may run into his RJ 11

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and that's very similar to RJ 45 but it's a lot smaller.

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You'll recognize this as the type of connector that's used like old school telephone equipment. So if you still have an older

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actual landline, you may see these RJ 11 connectors.

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As I mentioned before, there's a lot of different categories for twisted pair cabling, Um, and that's

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basically to break down

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speeds and transmission length.

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So Category one, which air usually older telephone cables,

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provided up to about one making its per second, and there wasn't necessarily a real maximum length for those

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category two provided up to four megabits per second and they're typically used in token ring networks.

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Category three was operated to provide up to about 10 megabits per second and had a maximum length of about 100 meters. These were used in Token Ring and AH 10 based T Ethernet networks.

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Category four was an improvement over that and it went up to a 16 megabits per second and still about 100 meters. These were also used in token Bring networks

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Category five eyes over one, but you may still actually encounter the use. Ah, lot of older buildings. They provided up to 100 megabits per second and had a maximum length of about 100 meters. These air using in your typical Ethernet fast Ethernet and token ring networks

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Category five e was an improvement upon the Category five cables and they up the data rates up to about a gig per second.

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Again, the maximum length was about 100 meters and these air used with Ethernet, fast Ethernet and gigabit Ethernet networks.

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Category six

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provided up to 10 gigabits per second again, the same max length of about 100 meters, and that's for your gigabit Ethernet in your 10 gig Ethan,

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Category six a is up to, ah, 10 gigabit per second as well. It's kind of just an improvement upon six

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and then Category seven, which I believe the standard is just finalizing or just finalized, provided again up to 10 gigabits per 2nd 100 meter max length. And it's used in the Gigabit Ethernet and 10 gig Ethernet Networks.

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Co. Axial cables have a single copper conductor at their center. Ah, plastic layer provides insulation between the centre conductor and the braided metal shield.

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The metal shield helps to block any outside interference from fluorescent lights, motors or other computers.

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Although co axial cable is pretty difficult to install, it's not very flexible, like your Ethernet cables or your twisted pair, it's actually really resistant to signal interference.

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In addition, it can support greater cable links between network devices than the typical 100 meters of a twisted pair cable.

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These are typically used with cable companies where they bring the network to your house. You may have seen these, um, on the older cable TV's as well. Um, older gaming systems like that a Nintendos and things like that. Reaction had toe twist that on same type of cable. They have both thick and thin cables,

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and they typically have what's called the Bay and Neil Councilman connector.

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The last form of networking cables we're going to talk about in the slider in this section is fiber, another form of networking communications. It's you'll typically see this in enterprise environments is fiber,

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fiber or fibre. Optic cables use light to transmit data

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very thin strands of glass or plastic fiber used to send these light signals across the cable.

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The core of the fiber cable is surrounded by what's called cladding, which is an optical material that traps the light in the core.

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And there's usually a buffer coating around that which protects the fiber from damage.

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The cable itself surrounds that, adding more protection and strengthening the cable.

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There are two types of fibre cables, single mode and multi mode, which I've shown here in single mode. The cables are designed to carry light directly down the fiber, which gives you a lot higher bandwidth but requires a light source that has a very narrow with So something doesn't split apart as much.

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This is typically used to cover long distances. Multi mode fibre typically has ah larger diameter. And in multi mode fibre, these lightwaves air dispersed into numerous paths. These the ones that you typically encounter in local area networks.

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So there's a lot of prose for fiber networks. Typically, there's little to no interference with them because it uses light and they are extremely fast. But there also are a few cons as well, the biggest one being. They're pretty expensive compared to twisted pair cables,

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and and they are also pretty fragile. You have to be really careful of those to not break them, because if you do break that, that energy material, the lights not gonna pass through it,

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rendering the cable useless.

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There are a lot of different types of connectors for fiber optic cables, but some of the most common types of connectors you'll encounter of in an enterprise environment are the S T connector

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s C connector

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and the L C and MTR J connectors.

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So me

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grab this year,

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so the S C and S t are these ones right up here

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and the let's see the Elsie is down here and there's both a single and the duplex, Elsie's and the MTR J is right here. This is the male end,

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and this is the female end.

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So the S T, which is actually a T and T trademark, is probably one of most popular connectors. Up until about two dozen five, it has the band at Mount in a long sindical 2.5 millimeter, usually ceramic Ferral, to hold the fiber.

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Most of the Ferrell's are ceramic, but there are some metal or plastic ones as well.

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A mating adapter is used to make the two connectors,

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and because ST's are spring loaded, you have to make sure that their ah seated properly. If you are getting a lot of loss,

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you may need to reconnect them to see if it wasn't connected all the way.

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S C is a snapping connector with a 2.5 millimeter feral ah fair role that is widely used for its excellent performance. It was the character standardized in the T I A 5 68 8 but it wasn't widely used at first because it was twice as expensive as the S T that were previously talking about.

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Now it's only a little bit more expensive and much more common.

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So it's a snapping connector, the latches with a simple push and pull motion to just kind of snap it right in.

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It's also available in a duplex

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configuration.

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Elsie is a smaller form factor. These a 1.25 millimeter fair rule, which is about half the size of the SC connector.

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Otherwise, it's the standard ceramic connector, easily terminated with any different types of adhesive.

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They are the really have really good performance, and their, ah, really highly favored for that single mode fibre.

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The last one that we're going to talk about and one of the more common ones that you'll see is the Mt. RJ,

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which is a duplex connector with both fibers. Any ah single polymer polymer fair roll uses pins for alignment and has, ah, male and a female version multi mode only, and it's terminated by pre polished spice method, so it's actually terminated in the field

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quiz question.

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Can you use in RJ 45 connector on a fiber optic cable

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and give you just a second to think about that? We just talked about all those different fiber connectors

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and no RJ 45 connectors are used on Ethernet or twisted pair cables with a fiber optic, when you typically want to use A S, T S, C, L C or an empty R J connector.

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In today's video, we discussed a lot. We talked about the different types of transmission media, co axial, twisted pair and fiber.