Types of Cable

Unshielded Twisted-Pair
Shielded Twisted-Pair
Multimode Optical Fiber
Single-mode Optical Fiber
RG-58 Coaxial Cable (Thinnet)
RG-62 Coaxial Cable (ARCNET)
Thicknet Ethernet Coaxial Cable

Unshielded Twisted-Pair

Category 3 Cable: With 10 MHz bandwidth, used for telco voice and horizontal wiring for 10-Mbps 10Base-T Ethernet or 4-Mbps Token Ring.
Category 4 Cable: With 20 MHz bandwidth, used for 16-Mbps Token Ring.
Category 5 Cable: The single most popular flavor! With 100 MHz bandwidth, it can handle upto 100-Mbps.

Let's take a look at Cat-5 Cable:

Pair 1 (White-Blue/Blue)

Pair 2 (White-Orange/Orange)

Pair 3 (White-Green/Green)

Pair 4 (White-Brown/Brown)

Although sometimes it can have these colors instead:

Pair 1 (Green/Red)

Pair 2 (Black/Yellow)

Pair 3 (Blue/Orange)

Pair 4 (Brown/Slate)

Tip and Ring:

TIP = Connector on pointy part of telco plug = Positive Terminal = white/solid wire
RING = Connector on isolated band of telco plug = Negative Terminal = solid/white wire

Category 5 Cross-Connect Jumper Wire looks like this:

(White/Red)

(White/Blue)

Shielded Twisted-Pair Cable

Optical Fiber Cable

(multimode)

(single-mode)

Coaxial Cable

RG-58 is used for Thinnet Ethernet, RG-62 is used for ARCNET, RG-59 is used for Cable-TV, RG-8 is used for Cable-TV (better quality), and Thicknet has no RG label. Be careful which wire you are using, as they have very different characteristics and limits. Look for the RG label on the cable itself (or for the tell-tale sickly yellow thick coax that is Thicknet); if you can't identify it, don't use it!

Cabling Do's and Don'ts

Watch how you bend cable

Don't over-tighten cable ties

Don't over-twist cable

Avoid stretching the cable (only 25 lbs. pulling tension)
DO NOT EVER USE A STAPLE GUN TO POSITION CABLE!


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