On Oct 15, 11:18, Ethan Dicks wrote:
> --- "Eric J. Korpela" <korpela_at_ssl.berkeley.edu> wrote:
> > Just wired the house with Cat-5 this week. 10bT has the advantage that
> > it's also 100bT with a change of equipment.
>
> I know you probably know what you meant, but to me, that statement is
> misleading, or rather, to someone who knows little about networking,
> taking the second sentence out of context could lead trouble.
>
> phone wire - 2 pair or more, good for analog telephones
> CAT-3 - will pass 10mbps traffic (or analog telephone traffic)
> CAT-4 - good for token ring
> CAT-5 - good for most inexpensive networking technologies
> CAT-5e - needed for transmission technologies that put > 100mbps on
> a single pair.
>
> 10BaseT can use CAT-3 or better. 16mbps Token Ring needs CAT-5 or
> better. 100Base-TX needs CAT-5 (including CAT-5 jacks!) Don't recall
> what 100Base-T4 needs
Cat3
> Lotsa little fiddly details about the physical layer are covered up by
> robust layer 2 and layer 3 protocols. Without expensive sniffer hardware
> (Time Domain Reflectometer, anyone?), a lot of this stuff gets swept
under
> the rug until you are having fits when it doesn't work.
I couldn't agree more. Don't try to build a whole network (or long runs)
with stranded patch cord, for example.
> > (ISTR that you can use the
> > unused pair in the cable for LocalTalk, but I haven't yet tried it).
>
> Should be able to.
Just not at the same time as you're running 100baseTX up the same cable :-)
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York
Received on Mon Oct 15 2001 - 16:07:49 BST