Answer Description

A cable tester is used to verify a cable can support necessary electrical connections. For example, an ethernet cable tester would verify cables are in the correct order.

Wikipedia

A cable tester is an electronic device used to verify the electrical connections in a signal cable or other wired assembly. Basic cable testers are continuity testers that verify the existence of a conductive path between ends of the cable, and verify the correct wiring of connectors on the cable. More advanced cable testers can measure the signal transmission properties of the cable such as its resistance, signal attenuation, noise and interference.

Answer Description

A WiFi Analyzer is a mobile device (or software on a mobile device) that scans and tracks WiFi signals. It can help you find areas where a signal is low, and which wireless channels are being used the most. With this information you can reconfigure or reposition your WiFi Access Point for the best speeds and reliability.

Answer Description

Single-mode fiber optic cabling is best suited for long distance communication, while Multi-mode is generally used for shorter distances (within 1 building or group of close buildings).

Wikipedia

In fiber-optic communication, a single-mode optical fiber (SMF), also known as fundamental- or mono-mode, is an optical fiber designed to carry only a single mode of light - the transverse mode. Modes are the possible solutions of the Helmholtz equation for waves, which is obtained by combining Maxwell's equations and the boundary conditions. These modes define the way the wave travels through space, i.e. how the wave is distributed in space. Waves can have the same mode but have different frequencies. This is the case in single-mode fibers, where we can have waves with different frequencies, but of the same mode, which means that they are distributed in space in the same way, and that gives us a single ray of light. Although the ray travels parallel to the length of the fiber, it is often called transverse mode since its electromagnetic oscillations occur perpendicular (transverse) to the length of the fiber. The 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Charles K. Kao for his theoretical work on the single-mode optical fiber. The standards G.652 and G.657 define the most widely used forms of single-mode optical fiber.

Answer Description

Cat 6 uses twisted-pair copper cabling. Fiber optic uses plastic or glass to transmit data using light. RJ-11 and RJ-45 and connector types not cable types.

Wikipedia

Category 6 cable (Cat 6) is a standardized twisted pair cable for Ethernet and other network physical layers that is backward compatible with the Category 5/5e and Category 3 cable standards. Cat 6 must meet more stringent specifications for crosstalk and system noise than Cat 5 and Cat 5e. The cable standard specifies performance of up to 250 MHz, compared to 100 MHz for Cat 5 and Cat 5e.Whereas Category 6 cable has a reduced maximum length of 55 metres (180 ft) when used for 10GBASE-T, Category 6A cable is characterized to 500 MHz and has improved alien crosstalk characteristics, allowing 10GBASE-T to be run for the same 100-metre (330 ft) maximum distance as previous Ethernet variants.

Answer Description

Ethernet over Power also called Power-line Communication allows Ethernet signals to be sent over standard electrical power wiring in a building. This is helpful for situations where both WiFi and running new Ethernet cabling is not supported. Usually this is done by using adapters that plug into a wall power outlet and have a RJ-45 socket. It is often confused with Power over Ethernet, which is using Ethernet signals to power a networking device.

Wikipedia

Power-line communication (also known as power-line carrier or PLC) carries data on a conductor that is also used simultaneously for AC electric power transmission or electric power distribution to consumers. A wide range of power-line communication technologies are needed for different applications, ranging from home automation to Internet access which is often called broadband over power lines (BPL). Most PLC technologies limit themselves to one type of wires (such as premises wiring within a single building), but some can cross between two levels (for example, both the distribution network and premises wiring). Typically transformers prevent propagating the signal, which requires multiple technologies to form very large networks. Various data rates and frequencies are used in different situations. A number of difficult technical problems are common between wireless and power-line communication, notably those of spread spectrum radio signals operating in a crowded environment. Radio interference, for example, has long been a concern of amateur radio groups.

Answer Description

Fiber or Fiber Optic cables are made up of glass and/or plastic. Data is sent by transmitting light through the cables.

Etheroptic is not a real type of cabling, Category cabling uses copper and Lightning is a connector type made by Apple which uses metal contacts to transmit electricity.

Wikipedia

An optical fiber, or optical fibre in Commonwealth English, is a flexible, transparent fiber made by drawing glass (silica) or plastic to a diameter slightly thicker than that of a human hair. Optical fibers are used most often as a means to transmit light between the two ends of the fiber and find wide usage in fiber-optic communications, where they permit transmission over longer distances and at higher bandwidths (data transfer rates) than electrical cables. Fibers are used instead of metal wires because signals travel along them with less loss; in addition, fibers are immune to electromagnetic interference, a problem from which metal wires suffer. Fibers are also used for illumination and imaging, and are often wrapped in bundles so they may be used to carry light into, or images out of confined spaces, as in the case of a fiberscope. Specially designed fibers are also used for a variety of other applications, some of them being fiber optic sensors and fiber lasers.Optical fibers typically include a core surrounded by a transparent cladding material with a lower index of refraction. Light is kept in the core by the phenomenon of total internal reflection which causes the fiber to act as a waveguide. Fibers that support many propagation paths or transverse modes are called multi-mode fibers, while those that support a single mode are called single-mode fibers (SMF). Multi-mode fibers generally have a wider core diameter and are used for short-distance communication links and for applications where high power must be

Answer Description

Crossover cables can support direct communication between two computers without the need for an intermediate device. Keep in mind this just refers to the cable, the computers still need to be correctly configured for this to work. Many modern Network Interface Cards (NICs) can support automatic cable type detection allowing a Crossover and Straight-through cable to work. A Rollover cable is used to connect a computer to network devices for configuration purposes only and is sometimes called a console cable. RJ-11 and RJ-45 are connector types not cable types.

Wikipedia

An Ethernet crossover cable is a crossover cable for Ethernet used to connect computing devices together directly. It is most often used to connect two devices of the same type, e.g. two computers (via their network interface controllers) or two switches to each other. By contrast, straight through patch cables are used to connect devices of different types, such as a computer to a network switch. Intentionally crossed wiring in the crossover cable connects the transmit signals at one end to the receive signals at the other end. Many network devices today support auto MDI-X (aka "auto crossover") capability, wherein a patch cable can be used in place of a crossover cable, or vice versa, and the receive and transmit signals are reconfigured automatically within the device to yield a working connection.

Answer Description

There is no official definition of managed and unmanaged switches. Different vendors may market their switches differently. However, in general an unmanaged switch does not support or has very limited configuration options and is meant to work for most networks right out of the box. Managed switches require more configuration to properly function but offer more features and functionality.

Wikipedia

A network switch (also called switching hub, bridging hub, and, by the IEEE, MAC bridge) is networking hardware that connects devices on a computer network by using packet switching to receive and forward data to the destination device. A network switch is a multiport network bridge that uses MAC addresses to forward data at the data link layer (layer 2) of the OSI model. Some switches can also forward data at the network layer (layer 3) by additionally incorporating routing functionality. Such switches are commonly known as layer-3 switches or multilayer switches.Switches for Ethernet are the most common form of network switch. The first MAC Bridge was invented in 1983 by Mark Kempf, an engineer in the Networking Advanced Development group of Digital Equipment Corporation. The first 2 port Bridge product (LANBridge 100) was introduced by that company shortly after. The company subsequently produced multi-port switches for both Ethernet and FDDI such as GigaSwitch. Digital decided to license its MAC Bridge patent in a royalty-free, non-discriminatory basis that allowed IEEE standardization. This permitted a number of other companies to produce multi-port switches, including Kalpana. Ethernet was initially a shared-access medium, but the introduction of the MAC bridge began its transformation into its most-common point-to-point form without a collision domain. Switches also exist for other types of networks including Fibre Channel, Asynchronous Transfer Mode, and InfiniBand. Unlike repeater hubs, which broadcast the same data out of each port and let the devices pick out the data addressed to them,

Answer Description

Plenum cabling is special cabling used in the plenum spacing of buildings. It has special fire-retardant properties to reduce fire's ability to spread.

Wikipedia

Plenum cable is electrical cable that is laid in the plenum spaces of buildings. In the United States, plastics used in the construction of plenum cable are regulated under the National Fire Protection Association standard NFPA 90A: Standard for the Installation of Air Conditioning and Ventilating Systems. All materials intended for use on wire and cables to be placed in plenum spaces are designed to meet rigorous fire safety test standards in accordance with NFPA 262 and outlined in NFPA 90A. Plenum cable is jacketed with a fire-retardant plastic jacket of either a low-smoke polyvinyl chloride (PVC) or a fluorinated ethylene polymer (FEP). Polyolefin formulations, specifically based on polyethylene compounding had been developed by at least two companies in the early to mid-1990s; however, these were never commercialized, and development efforts continue in these yet-untapped product potentials. Development efforts on a non-halogen plenum compound were announced in 2007 citing new flame-retardant synergist packages that may provide an answer for a yet-underdeveloped plenum cable market outside the United States. In 2006, significant concern developed over the potential toxicity of FEP and related fluorochemicals including the process aid perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) or C8 such that California has proposed some of these materials as potential human carcinogens. The NFPA Technical Committee on Air Conditioning, in response to public comment, has referred the issue of toxicity of cabling materials to the NFPA Committee on Toxicity for review before 2008. In 2007, a development program specifically targeting the production of a non-halogen plenum cable

Answer Description

Port 25 is used by the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) which can be used to send emails.

Wikipedia

The Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is an Internet standard communication protocol for electronic mail transmission. Mail servers and other message transfer agents use SMTP to send and receive mail messages. User-level email clients typically use SMTP only for sending messages to a mail server for relaying, and typically submit outgoing email to the mail server on port 587 or 465 per RFC 8314. For retrieving messages, IMAP (which replaced the older POP3) is standard, but proprietary servers also often implement proprietary protocols, e.g., Exchange ActiveSync. SMTP's origins began in 1980, building on concepts implemented on the ARPANET since 1971. It has been updated, modified and extended multiple times. The protocol version in common use today has extensible structure with various extensions for authentication, encryption, binary data transfer, and internationalized email addresses. SMTP servers commonly use the Transmission Control Protocol on port number 25 (for plaintext) and 587 (for encrypted communications).

Answer Description

Cat 5e can reach speeds of 1000 Megabits per second (Mbps), which is the same as 1 Gigabit per second (1 Gbps).

Wikipedia

Category 5 cable (Cat 5) is a twisted pair cable for computer networks. Since 2001, the variant commonly in use is the Category 5e specification (Cat 5e). The cable standard provides performance of up to 100 MHz and is suitable for most varieties of Ethernet over twisted pair up to 2.5GBASE-T but more commonly runs at 1000BASE-T (Gigabit Ethernet) speeds. Cat 5 is also used to carry other signals such as telephone and video. This cable is commonly connected using punch-down blocks and modular connectors. Most Category 5 cables are unshielded, relying on the balanced line twisted pair design and differential signaling for noise rejection.

Answer Description

A patch panel is a board with a number of electrical sockets, in networking you will often see ethernet patch panels with RJ-45 sockets. A punch down tool helps insert ethernet wiring into the back of the RJ-45 sockets. You can do this by hand, but it is difficult to get good connections leading to packet drops. Using a punch down tool makes this process faster and ensures solid connections between your cabling and patch panel.

Wikipedia

A punch down tool, punchdown tool, IDC tool, or a Krone tool (named after the Krone LSA-PLUS connector), is a small hand tool used by telecommunication and network technicians. It is used for inserting wire into insulation-displacement connectors on punch down blocks, patch panels, keystone modules, and surface mount boxes (also known as biscuit jacks).

Answer Description

Cat 6 cabling can go up to 1000 Megabits per second (Mbps), which is the same as saying 1 Gigabit per second (Gbps). At shorter distances (55 meters) Cat 6 can go up to 10Gbps (10,000 Mbps)

Wikipedia

Category 6 cable (Cat 6) is a standardized twisted pair cable for Ethernet and other network physical layers that is backward compatible with the Category 5/5e and Category 3 cable standards. Cat 6 must meet more stringent specifications for crosstalk and system noise than Cat 5 and Cat 5e. The cable standard specifies performance of up to 250 MHz, compared to 100 MHz for Cat 5 and Cat 5e.Whereas Category 6 cable has a reduced maximum length of 55 metres (180 ft) when used for 10GBASE-T, Category 6A cable is characterized to 500 MHz and has improved alien crosstalk characteristics, allowing 10GBASE-T to be run for the same 100-metre (330 ft) maximum distance as previous Ethernet variants.

Answer Description

Category 6a (Augmented) cabling supports 10,000 Megabits per second (Mbps) which is the same as 10 Gigabits per second (Gbps) at distances up to 100 meters.

Wikipedia

Category 6 cable (Cat 6) is a standardized twisted pair cable for Ethernet and other network physical layers that is backward compatible with the Category 5/5e and Category 3 cable standards. Cat 6 must meet more stringent specifications for crosstalk and system noise than Cat 5 and Cat 5e. The cable standard specifies performance of up to 250 MHz, compared to 100 MHz for Cat 5 and Cat 5e.Whereas Category 6 cable has a reduced maximum length of 55 metres (180 ft) when used for 10GBASE-T, Category 6A cable is characterized to 500 MHz and has improved alien crosstalk characteristics, allowing 10GBASE-T to be run for the same 100-metre (330 ft) maximum distance as previous Ethernet variants.

Answer Description

Category 6 cabling supports 10,000 Megabits per second (Mbps) which is the same as 10 Gigabits per second (Gbps) at distances up to 55 meters. At longer distances (up to 100 Meters) 1 Gbps is supported.

Wikipedia

Category 6 cable (Cat 6) is a standardized twisted pair cable for Ethernet and other network physical layers that is backward compatible with the Category 5/5e and Category 3 cable standards. Cat 6 must meet more stringent specifications for crosstalk and system noise than Cat 5 and Cat 5e. The cable standard specifies performance of up to 250 MHz, compared to 100 MHz for Cat 5 and Cat 5e.Whereas Category 6 cable has a reduced maximum length of 55 metres (180 ft) when used for 10GBASE-T, Category 6A cable is characterized to 500 MHz and has improved alien crosstalk characteristics, allowing 10GBASE-T to be run for the same 100-metre (330 ft) maximum distance as previous Ethernet variants.

Answer Description

A loopback plug is used to test serial ports, USB ports and network ports. Most commonly you will see network loopback plugs for fiber and ethernet. Loopback plugs reflect signals making it possible to verify that an electrical signal is successfully transmitting between two endpoints.

Wikipedia

Loopback (also written loop-back) is the routing of electronic signals or digital data streams back to their source without intentional processing or modification. It is primarily a means of testing the communications infrastructure. There are many example applications. It may be a communication channel with only one communication endpoint. Any message transmitted by such a channel is immediately and only received by that same channel. In telecommunications, loopback devices perform transmission tests of access lines from the serving switching center, which usually does not require the assistance of personnel at the served terminal. Loop around is a method of testing between stations that are not necessarily adjacent, wherein two lines are used, with the test being done at one station and the two lines are interconnected at the distant station. A patch cable may also function as loopback, when applied manually or automatically, remotely or locally, facilitating a loop-back test. Where a system (such as a modem) involves round-trip analog-to-digital processing, a distinction is made between analog loopback, where the analog signal is looped back directly, and digital loopback, where the signal is processed in the digital domain before being re-converted to an analog signal and returned to the source.

Answer Description

Wireless Wide Area Network (WWAN) is a wireless network type that uses the same technology used by cellular networks like LTE, 5G, etc. It is used for larger networks like one spanning a city or large campus.

Wikipedia

Wireless wide area network (WWAN), is a form of wireless network. The larger size of a wide area network compared to a local area network requires differences in technology. Wireless networks of different sizes deliver data in the form of telephone calls, web pages, and video streaming. A WWAN often differs from wireless local area network (WLAN) by using mobile telecommunication cellular network technologies such as 2G, 3G, 4G LTE, and 5G to transfer data. It is sometimes referred as Mobile Broadband. These technologies are offered regionally, nationwide, or even globally and are provided by a wireless service provider. WWAN connectivity allows a user with a laptop and a WWAN card to surf the web, check email, or connect to a virtual private network (VPN) from anywhere within the regional boundaries of cellular service. Various computers can have integrated WWAN capabilities. A WWAN may also be a closed network that covers a large geographic area. For example, a mesh network or MANET with nodes on buildings, towers, trucks, and planes could also be considered a WWAN. A WWAN may also be a low-power, low-bit-rate wireless WAN, (LPWAN), intended to carry small packets of information between things, often in the form of battery operated sensors. Since radio communications systems do not provide a physically secure connection path, WWANs typically incorporate encryption and authentication methods to make them more secure. Some of the early GSM encryption techniques were flawed, and security experts have issued warnings that cellular communication, including WWAN, is no longer secure. UMTS

Answer Description

Category 5 cabling is rated for a maximum of 100 meters.

Wikipedia

Category 5 cable (Cat 5) is a twisted pair cable for computer networks. Since 2001, the variant commonly in use is the Category 5e specification (Cat 5e). The cable standard provides performance of up to 100 MHz and is suitable for most varieties of Ethernet over twisted pair up to 2.5GBASE-T but more commonly runs at 1000BASE-T (Gigabit Ethernet) speeds. Cat 5 is also used to carry other signals such as telephone and video. This cable is commonly connected using punch-down blocks and modular connectors. Most Category 5 cables are unshielded, relying on the balanced line twisted pair design and differential signaling for noise rejection.

Answer Description

Fiber optic cable is immune from electromagnetic interference because it uses light and not electricity to transmit data. Of the remaining options Shielded Twisted Pair (STP) is the least susceptible but is not immune to electromagnetic interference.

Wikipedia

An optical fiber, or optical fibre in Commonwealth English, is a flexible, transparent fiber made by drawing glass (silica) or plastic to a diameter slightly thicker than that of a human hair. Optical fibers are used most often as a means to transmit light between the two ends of the fiber and find wide usage in fiber-optic communications, where they permit transmission over longer distances and at higher bandwidths (data transfer rates) than electrical cables. Fibers are used instead of metal wires because signals travel along them with less loss; in addition, fibers are immune to electromagnetic interference, a problem from which metal wires suffer. Fibers are also used for illumination and imaging, and are often wrapped in bundles so they may be used to carry light into, or images out of confined spaces, as in the case of a fiberscope. Specially designed fibers are also used for a variety of other applications, some of them being fiber optic sensors and fiber lasers.Optical fibers typically include a core surrounded by a transparent cladding material with a lower index of refraction. Light is kept in the core by the phenomenon of total internal reflection which causes the fiber to act as a waveguide. Fibers that support many propagation paths or transverse modes are called multi-mode fibers, while those that support a single mode are called single-mode fibers (SMF). Multi-mode fibers generally have a wider core diameter and are used for short-distance communication links and for applications where high power must be

Answer Description

Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP) is twisted pair cabling that does not have any sort of cable shielding. Shielded Twisted Pair (STP) does contain additional shielding, however it is for reducing electromagnetic interference and does not provide any fire protection.

Wikipedia

Twisted pair cabling is a type of wiring used for communications in which two conductors of a single circuit are twisted together for the purposes of improving electromagnetic compatibility. Compared to a single conductor or an untwisted balanced pair, a twisted pair reduces electromagnetic radiation from the pair and crosstalk between neighboring pairs and improves rejection of external electromagnetic interference. It was invented by Alexander Graham Bell.For additional noise immunity, twisted-pair cabling may be shielded. Cable with shielding is known as shielded twisted pair (STP) and without as unshielded twisted pair (UTP).