This is not the complete solution of assignment.

The material is taken 4rm handouts, book of Behrrouz

A. Forouazan.

Question 1: [10]
Compare and contrast Twisted pair cable, coaxial cable and optical fiber with
respect to
Property of Media, Cost and Bandwidth associated with each? Also discuss the
appropriate application of each.

Twisted pair cable

Twisted pairs have less bandwidth than coaxial cable or optical fiber.
Twister pair cables are used in telephone lines to provide voice and data channels.
The local loop __ the line thet connects subscribers to the central telephone office __
commonly consists of unshielded twisted-pair cables.
The DSL lines that are used by the telephone companies to provide high-data-rate
connections also used the high-bandwidth capability of unshielded twister-pair
cables.
Local-area networks, such as 10Base-T and 100Base-T ,also used twisted-pair cables.

Coaxial cable
Coaxial cable is used as a transmission line for frequency signals, in applications such
as connecting radio transmitters and receivers with their antennas, computer network
(Internet) connections, and distributing cable television signals. One advantage of
coax over other types of radio transmission line is that in an ideal coaxial cable
the electromagnetic field carrying the signal exists only in the space between the inner
and outer conductors. This allows coaxial cable runs to be installed next to metal
objects such as gutters without the power losses that occur in other types of
transmission lines, and provides protection of the signal from
external electromagnetic interference.
Coaxial cable differs from other shielded cable used for carrying lower frequency
signals such as audio signals, in that the dimensions of the cable are controlled to give
a precise, constant conductor spacing, which is needed for it to function efficiently as
a radio frequency transmission line.
Coaxial cable was widely used in analog telephone networks where a single coaxial
net work could carry 10,000 voice signals. Latter it was used in digital telephone
networks where a single coaxial cable could carry digital date upto 600Mbps.
However , coaxial cable in telephone networks has largely been replaced today with
fiber-optic cable.
Optical fiber
Because the effect of dispersion increases with the length of the fiber, a fiber
transmission system is often characterized by its bandwidth-distance product, often
expressed in units of MHz×km. This value is a product of bandwidth and distance
because there is a trade off between the bandwidth of the signal and the distance it can
be carried. For example, a common multimode fiber with bandwidth-distance product
of 500 MHz×km could carry a 500 MHz signal for 1 km or a 1000 MHz signal for
0.5 km.
Optical fiber is used by many telecommunications companies to transmit telephone
signals, Internet communication, and cable television signals. Due to much
lower attenuation and interference, optical fiber has large advantages over existing
copper wire in long-distance and high-demand applications. However, infrastructure
development within cities was relatively difficult and time-consuming, and fiber-optic
systems were complex and expensive to install and operate. Due to these difficulties,
fiber-optic communication systems have primarily been installed in long-distance
applications, where they can be used to their full transmission capacity, offsetting the
increased cost. Since 2000, the prices for fiber-optic communications have dropped
considerably. The price for rolling out fiber to the home has currently become more
cost-effective than that of rolling out a copper based network. Prices have dropped
to $850 per subscriber in the US and lower in countries like The Netherlands, where
digging costs are low.
Since 1990, when optical-amplification systems became commercially available, the
telecommunications industry has laid a vast network of intercity and transoceanic
fiber communication lines. By 2002, an intercontinental network of 250,000 km
of submarine communications cable with a capacity of 2.56 Tb/s was completed, and
although specific network capacities are privileged information, telecommunications
investment reports indicate that network capacity has increased dramatically since
2004.

Question 2: [5]
What are the categories newer than CAT5 of Twisted pair cable? What are the
specification and application of these?

• Cat 6: A new rating just developed in US, ISO/IEC and CENELEC. Rated frequency
is 200 MHz with some requirements specified for 250 MHz. Category 6 is being
specified concurrently by both ISO in the 11801-2001 document and the TIA in its
Category 6 addendum to TIA 568B (ANSI/TIA/EIA-568-B.2-1 ratified by the
TIA/EIA in June 2002). This presents the best performance possible with the
current T568A and T568B wiring configurations on an 8 position 8 conductor
modular connector (RJ-45). In Europe this is known as ISO/IEC 11801 Class E
cabing.
• Cat 7: A rating for individual pair screened cables derived from the german DIN
44312-2 standard requirements. Rated frequency is 600 MHz. The work is on
progress. This is also known as ISO/IEC 11801 Class E. This cable is fully shielded
and uses non-standard RJ-45 interface (Alcatel hybrid RJ-45 connector).This
cabling is primarily for European market place. Other alternative connector style is
IBM Mini-C connector. In Europe this is known as Class F cabling.
Generally the specification for different groups is determined by Attenuation/Cross Talk
Ratio, the gap between attenuation and NEXT. Practically a minimum gap of 10 dB is
required for a data signal to be readable. CAT-3 UTP cable rated at 16 MHz with 10 dB of
headroom at 16 MHz. CAT-4 UTP cable rated at 20 MHz with 10 dB of headroom at 20
MHz. CAT-5 UTP cable rated at 100 MHz with 10 dB of headroom at 100 MHz.