Network media

Question 1

What are the two most common connectors for UTP cables?

Answer 1

RJ11: supports two pairs of wires. Typically for telephones.
RJ45: Typically used with ethernet cables and supports four pairs (8 total) of wires.

Question 2

Describe the specifications of Cat3

Answer 2

Supports 10 Mbps for up to 100 meters. Commonly used for phone lines today.

Question 3

Describe the specifications of Cat4

Answer 3

Supports up to 16 Mbps for up to 100 meters, and is not commonly used today.

Question 4

Describe the specifications of Cat5

Answer 4

Supports up to 100 Mbps up to 100 meters and contains two twisted pairs. Used in ethernet LANs. Practically replaced by Cat5e

Question 5

Describe the specifications of Cat5e

Answer 5

Doubles the number of twisted pairs (to four twisted pairs). Supports up to 1 Gbps (1000 Mbps) up to 100 meters.

Question 6

Describe the specifications of Cat6

Answer 6

Cat6 is also used in Ethernet LANs and data centers. Cat6 is made up of four tightly woven twisted pairs (more twists per linear foot) and supports 1 Gbps for up to 100 meters or 10 Gbps for up to 55 meters.

Question 7

Describe the specifications of Cat6a

Answer 7

Cat6a is an improvement of the Cat6 standard, supporting the same standards and lengths (with the ability to run 10 Gbps over 100 meters maximum), but using a higher quality cable that is more resistant to interference. This is most commonly used in wired networks today.

Question 8

Describe single mode fiber optic

Answer 8

Single-mode cables are made up of one single glass or plastic fiber. The benefit of a single fiber cable is the ability to carry higher bandwidth for 50 times the distance of a multimode cable. This requires higher cost electronics to create the light and thus is typically used for longer distances (hundreds or thousands of kilometers) and higher bandwidth applications.

Question 9

Describe multimode fiber optic

Answer 9

Multimode cables are wider in diameter due to light modes being sent across the cable. Multimode fibers are highly effective over medium distances (500 meters or less at higher speeds) and are generally used within a LAN. They are also less expensive than single-mode fiber due to the potential for use with LEDs and other lower-cost options for creating the light.

Question 10

What are the two primary connectors types for fiber optic?

Answer 10

ST: This stands for a straight tip connector. This was the most commonly used connector with multimode fiber until the mid-2000s. It was used on campuses, corporate networks, and for military purposes. Today, LC connectors are usually used instead, as they are denser and more convenient at almost the same cost.

LC: This stands for lucent connector. This is a smaller version of the standard connector (SC). This supports more ports to be used in the same space. This is probably the most common type used in corporate data centers today and is usually used with SFP (small form-factor pluggable) transceivers.

Question 11

Describe a crossover cable

Answer 11

Crossover cables are used to connect two computing devices of the same type directly to each other.

Question 12

Describe patch cables

Answer 12

Patch cables are used to connect a device to a wall outlet, for example. The wall outlet is wired to another patch panel in the networking closet, and that networking panel is wired into a switch. These cables can also be used to wire servers in a rack to the top-of-rack (ToR) switch. Patch cables look similar to crossover and UTP cables.

Question 13

Describe the 802.11ax standard

Answer 13

Update to 802.11ac
Rebranded to Wi-Fi 6
Adds support for 6 GHz frequency range
Support for approximately 1–10 Gbps

Question 14

What are the two internet standards defined by the IEEE?

Answer 14

802.3 for wired ethernet networks and 802.11 for wireless networks.