Data Transmission Media

Key Terms
data transmission coax TP
communications medium twisted pair UTP
bounded media center conductor STP
unbounded media dielectric RJ-11, RJ-45
bandwidth insulation layer data grade
attenuation outer conductor light conductor
EMI shield cladding
noise jacket/sheath sheath/jacket
electrical conductor impedance multi-fiber cable
copper RG-8, RG-11, RG-58 LED
fiber optic RG-59 laser diode
glass RG-62 photodiode

Data Transmission

Data transmission is the process of conveying data between two points by

way of a communication medium. A wide variety of media are available, but
they fall into two classes: bounded and unbounded.

Bounded media confine the data to specific physical pathways. Common

examples of bounded media are wire and optical fiber cables. Cable TV uses
bounded media.

Unbounded media transmit the data-carrying signal through space,

independent of a cable. Broadcast radio and television are examples of
unbounded media.

Bounded Media

By far the most common media employed for data transmission are defined
as bounded -- the data signal is confined in a specific transmission pathway.
When practical, cable represents a low-cost and reliable means of
transmitting data between computing devices.

Practicality is a relative thing. Certainly cables are likely to be the logical

choice within a building or even a building complex. It may not be possible,
however, to run a cable between two buildings on different sides of a public
road, and it is certainly a major undertaking when the buildings are located
on different continents. Such conditions may call for use of unbounded
media.

You should be alert to several characteristics when examining cables:

1. Resistance to electrical magnetic interference (EMI).

2. Bandwidth, the range of frequencies that the cable can

accommodate. LANs generally carry data rates of 1 to 100 megabits
per second and require moderately high bandwidth.

3. Attenuation characteristics. Attenuation describes how cables

reduce the strength of a signal with distance. Resistance is one factor
that contributes to signal attenuation.

4. Cost.

NOTE: Electrical magnetic interference, or EMI, can be a major headache

for LAN technicians. Many electrical devices generate magnetic fields that
produce unwanted electrical currents in data cables. The noise that results
from these currents can degrade data signals, sometimes stopping
communication altogether due to excessive error rates. Electrical motors
and fluorescent lights are common sources of EMI, and it can be a genuine
challenge to cable a network in environments such as factories that contain
many electrical devices.

Cable Types
 Cables fall into two broad
categories -- electrical
conductors and fiber optic
-- with various types of
cables available in each
category. Prior to an examination of fiber optic cables, this section examines
two types of electrical cables: coaxial and twisted pair.

NOTE: Electrical cable types are frequently referred to as "copper"

because that metal is the most frequently used conductor. You may hear
fiber optic cables called simply "fiber" or "glass".

Coaxial Cable

As you can see in this diagram, this cable is called coaxial (or coax for short)
because two conductors share a COmmon AXis. A typical coaxial cable has
the following components:

• Center conductor. This conductor usually consists of a fairly heavy,

solid yet flexible wire; stranded wires can also be used. Solid
conductors are preferred for permanent wiring, but stranded
conductors make the cable more flexible and easier to connect to
equipment.
• Insulation layer. Also called a dielectric layer, this layer provides
electrical insulation and keeps the inner and outer conductors in
precise coaxial relationship.
• Outer conductor or shield. This layer shields the inner conductor from
outside electrical interference. The shield can consist of braided
wires, metal foil, or a combination of both. Because of this shield,
coax is highly resistant to electrical magnetic interference (EMI).
• Jacket or sheath. A durable plastic or Teflon jacket coats the cable
to prevent damage.

Coax has many desirable characteristics. It is highly resistant to EMI and

can support high bandwidths. Some types of coax have heavy shields and
center conductors to enhance these characteristics and to extend the
distances that signals can be transmitted reliably.
A wide variety of
coax cable is available.
You must use cable
that exactly matches
the requirements of a
particular type of network. Coax cables vary in a measurement known as the
impedance (measured in a unit called the ohm), which is an indication of the
cable's resistance to current flow. The specifications of a given cabling
standard indicate the required impedance of the cable.

Here are some common examples of coaxial cables used in LANs, along
with their impedances, and the LAN standards with which they are
associated:

• RG-8 and RG-11 are 50 ohm cables required for thickwire Ethernet.
(10Base5 - ThinkNet)
• RG-58 is a smaller 50 ohm cable required for use with thinwire
Ethernet. (10Base2 - ThinNet)
• RG-59 is a 75 ohm cable most familiar when used to wire cable TV.
RG-59 is also used to cable broadband 802.3 Ethernet.
• RG-62 is a 93 ohm cable used for ARCnet. It is also commonly
employed to wire terminals in an IBM SNA network.

Some advantages of coaxial cable are as follows:

• Highly insensitive to EMI

• Supports high bandwidths
• Heavier types of coax are sturdy and can withstand harsh
environments
• Represents a mature technology that is well understood and
consistently applied among vendors

Coax also has some disadvantages including the following:

• Although fairly insensitive to EMI, coax remains vulnerable to EMI in

harsh conditions such as factories.
• Coax can be bulky.
• Coax is among the most expensive types of wire cables.
Twisted Pair

This diagram shows how two wires are twisted together to form the wire
type known as twisted pair (TP).
Cables can be constructed of
multiple pairs of cables contained
by a common jacket.

The twists in the wire pairs are an

important part of the electrical
characteristics of TP cable. Twists
reduce the cable's sensitivity to
outside EMI and the degree to which
the cables radiate radio frequency signals.
Remember that the frequencies at
which LANs operate fall into the
range of radio signals. If TP cable is
insufficiently twisted, it can function as an antenna and radiate significant
amounts of radio signals that can interfere with local broadcast reception
equipment.

Until recently, twisted pair cable used in networks was most frequently
surrounded by a braided shield that served to reduce both EMI sensitivity
and radio emissions. An example of this shielded twisted pair (STP) cable is
IBM Type 1 ,Type 6, and the newer Type 9 cable used in Token Ring
installations. Shielded twisted pair cable (STP) was required for all high-
performance networks such as IBM Token Ring until a relatively few years
ago. STP cable, however, is expensive and bulky, and manufacturers of
network equipment have devoted extensive research to enabling high-speed
networks to work with unshielded twisted pair (UTP). UTP is the cost leader
among network cables. The 10Base-T & 100Base-TX standards defines an
Ethernet configuration that utilizes UTP. Recent work by IBM and other
vendors also has developed network equipment that can use UTP even for
high speed 16 megabit per second Token Ring. In most cases, UTP cable is
implemented using modular telephone-type connectors such as the RJ-11 (2
pair) and RJ-45 (4 pair) connectors. Telephone modular connectors are
inexpensive and easy to install, serving to further reduce the cost of UTP
cabling systems.

NOTE: UTP looks much like the wire used to wire voice telephones. In newer
telephone installations, it may indeed be possible to use wiring installed for
the voice telephone system as cable in a network. UTP cable comes in a
variety of grades, ranging from level 1 (lowest quality) to level 5 (highest
quality). When investigating the use of UTP cabling, be sure to determine
the wire quality required for your network.

When utilizing UTP cable, it is necessary to ensure that all components in

the data network are data grade. Voice grade components used in voice
telephone systems are not of sufficiently high quality.

Shielded twisted pair cable (STP) is the standard cable specified for IBM
Token Ring networks and for Apple's LocalTalk.

Unshielded twisted pair cables (UTP) can be utilized for some configurations
of Token Ring, Ethernet, and ARCnet networks.

Here are some advantages of twisted pair wiring:

• Telephone cable standards are mature and well established. Materials

are plentiful, and a wide variety of cable installers are familiar with
the installation requirements.
• It may be possible to use in-place telephone wiring if it is of
sufficiently high quality.
• UTP represents the lowest cost cabling. The cost for STP is higher
and is comparable to the cost of coaxial cable.

Some disadvantages of twisted pair are as follows:

• STP can be expensive and difficult to work with.

• Compared to fiber optic cable, all TP cable is more sensitive to EMI.
UTP especially may be unsuitable for use in high-EMI environments.
• TP cables are regraded as being less suitable for high-speed
transmissions than coax or fiber optic. Technology advances, however,
 are pushing upward the data rates possible with TP. Cable segment
lengths are also more limited with TP.

Fiber Optic

Fiber optic cables utilize light waves to transmit data through a thin glass or
plastic fiber. The structure of a typical fiber optic cable is shown in the
diagram. The parts of the cable are as follows:

• The light conductor is a very fine fiber core. Glass is the most
common material, allowing signals to be transmitted for several
kilometers without being refreshed. Plastic is used in some
circumstances, but plastic cables allow only short cable runs.
• The cladding is a glass layer that surrounds the optical fiber core. The
optical characteristics of the cladding reflect light back to the core,
ensuring that little of the light signal is lost.
• A sheath or jacket protects the cable from damage. A single sheath
can be used to bundle multiple core/cladding fibers into a multi-fiber
cable.

The light signals on fiber optic cables are generated either by light emitting
diodes (LEDs) or by injection laser diodes (ILDs), which are similar to LEDs
but produce laser light. The purity of laser light is desirable, increasing both
data rates and transmission distance. Signals are received by photodiodes,
solid state devices that detect variations in light intensity.

The interface devices required to operate with fiber optic cable are more
expensive than those required for copper cable. The higher cost is the
result of several factors, including cost of the components and tighter
design characteristics because fiber optic cables generally are operated at
high data rates. The cost of fiber optic cable installation, however, is
trending downward.

Fiber optic cables have many desirable characteristics. Because the fibers
are small in diameter, a cable of a given size can contain more fibers than
copper wire pairs. Because fiber optic cables use light pulses instead of
electrical signals, they offer very high bandwidth. Bandwiths of 100
megabits (million bits per second) are commonplace, and bandwidths in the
gigabit (billion bit) per second range are available.
Because the signal in a fiber optic cable consists of light pulses, the signal
cannot be affected by electromagnetic interference. Nor can the cables
radiate radio frequency noise. Optical fibers are, therefore, suitable for use
in the noisiest and most sensitive environments. Because these cables
radiate no electromagnetic energy, it is impossible to intercept the data
signal with electronic eavesdropping equipment. Fiber optic transmissions are
extremely secure.

Installation of fiber optic cable requires greater skill than is necessary to

install most copper cables. Cables must not be bent too sharply, and
connectors must be installed by skilled technicians using special tools.
However, new connector technologies have simplified installation and
reduced cost.

Here are some advantages of fiber optic cable:

• Very high bandwidth.

• Immunity to EMI; fiber optic cables can be used in environments that
make wire cables unusable.
• No radio frequency emissions; signals on fiber optic cables cannot
interfere with nearby electronic devices and cannot be detected by
conventional electronic eavesdropping techniques.

Summary of Cable Characteristics

Cable Cable Installation EMI Data

Type Cost Cost Sensitivity Bandwidth

UTP Lowest Lowest Highest Lowest

STP Medium Moderate Low Moderate

Coax Medium Moderate Low High

Fiber Optic Highest Highest None Very high