Differences Between Optical Fiber Cable, Network Cable And Cable

In the network hardware, there is another kind of network transmission medium that can not be ignored, which is usually called network cable. At present, the common network cables are divided into thin twisted pair, optical fiber cable, coaxial cable and thick coaxial cable.

1. Optical fiber cable

Optical fiber cable is a new generation of transmission medium. Compared with copper medium, optical fiber has greatly improved in terms of security, reliability and network performance. In addition, the bandwidth of optical fiber transmission greatly exceeds that of copper cable, and the maximum connection distance supported is more than two kilometers, which is the inevitable choice for building a large-scale network. Because optical fiber and cable has the advantages of good anti electromagnetic interference, strong confidentiality, fast speed and large transmission capacity, it is also expensive and rarely used in household occasions. At present, there are two common types of optical fibers, namely single-mode optical fiber and multimode optical fiber (the so-called "mode" refers to a beam of light entering the optical fiber at a certain angle). Multimode optical fiber is generally used for network connection in the same office building or relatively close area. Single mode fiber has higher quality and longer transmission distance. It is usually used to connect between office buildings or geographically dispersed networks. If optical fiber cable is used as network transmission medium, optical transceiver and other equipment need to be added, so the cost investment is greater and it is less used in general applications.

2. Twisted pair

Twisted pair is a kind of flexible communication cable, which contains pairs of insulated copper wires. It is characterized by low price, so it is widely used, such as our common telephone line. According to the maximum transmission rate, twisted pair can be divided into 3 categories, 5 categories and super 5 categories. The speed of class 3 twisted pair is 10MB / s, class 5 can reach 100MB / s, and super class 5 can reach more than 155Mb / s, which can meet the needs of multimedia data transmission in the future. Therefore, class 5 or even super class 5 twisted pair is recommended. Twisted pair can also be divided into shielded twisted pair (STP) and unshielded twisted pair (UTP). Although the speed of STP twisted pair is low (only 4MB / s), its anti-interference performance is stronger than that of UTP twisted pair, so the price is much more expensive. Now this kind of twisted pair is cheap for a few yuan a meter, and it may be more than ten yuan to buy a meter. In contrast, the price of UTP twisted pair is generally about one yuan per meter, which is relatively low. In addition, the popular names of 10m and 100m unshielded twisted pair are 10Base-T and 100Base-T, which are often seen in the market. RJ45 crystal head is also used with twisted pair to make the joint between twisted pair and network card RJ45 interface. Its quality is directly related to the stability of the whole network and can not be ignored.

3. Coaxial cable

Coaxial cable is a kind of transmission medium familiar to many friends. It is a cable with a central copper conductor wrapped by layers of insulated wires. Its biggest feature is good anti-interference ability, stable transmission data and cheap price. Therefore, it was once widely used, such as closed-circuit television line. However, in the past, more coaxial cables were used, mainly because the bus structure composed of coaxial cables has low network cost, but the damage of a single cable may lead to the paralysis of the whole network and difficult maintenance, which is its biggest disadvantage. Coaxial cables in Ethernet applications are mainly divided into thick coaxial cable (10BASE5) and thin coaxial cable (10base2). There are not many thick coaxial cables now, and there are still some markets for thin coaxial cables. The general market price of thin coaxial cable is a few yuan a meter, which is not too expensive. In addition, the coaxial cable is used to connect with the BNC head. The coaxial cable sold in the market is generally the finished product connected with the BNC head, which can be directly selected.