PC Hardware A Beginner’s Guide

Ethernet Cable Designations

In the Ethernet world, cable media is designated with a code that is descriptive of the

cable’s characteristics. Thick coax cable is designated as 10Base5, thin coaxial cable is

10Base2, and UTP is generally 10BaseT. The 10Base part indicates that these cables carry

10 Mbps bandwidths and that they carry baseband (digital) signals. For coax cable, the 5

and 2 mean 500 meters and 200 meters, respectively, the approximate maximum segment

length of the cable. TheTin 10BaseT refers to twisted pair cable. Fiber optic cable is desig-

nated as 10BaseF.

There are also 100 Mbps versions for faster network designations, including:

 100BaseT Along with 100BaseX, the generic term forFast Ethernet

 100BaseTX A two-pair wire version of 100BaseT

 100BaseT4 A four-pair wire version of Fast Ethernet

 100BaseFX Fast Ethernet using two-strand fiber optic cable

 100BaseVG A 100 Mbps standard over Category 3 cable (see the next section

for an explanation of the categories of cable)

 100BaseVG-AnyLAN Hewlett-Packard’s proprietary version of 100BaseVG

Broadband versus Baseband

Baseband networks use only one channel to support digital transmissions. This type of

network signaling uses twisted pair cabling. Most LANs are baseband networks.

Broadband networks use analog signaling over a wide range of frequencies. This type

of network is unusual, but many cable companies now offer high-speed Internet network

access over broadband systems.

Chapter 20: Networks and Communications^517

Cable Type Bandwidth

Max. Segment

Length

Max. Nodes/

Segment

Resistance to

Interference

Thin coaxial 10 Mbps 185 meters 30 Good

Thick coaxial 10 Mbps 500 meters 100 Better

UTP 10–100 Mbps 100 meters 1,024 Poor

STP 16–1,000 Mbps 100 meters 1,024 Fair to good

Fiber optic 100–10,000 Mbps 2,000 meters No limit Best

Table 20-2. Network Cable Media Characteristics