The physical linkages responsible for carrying a company's data continue to be the most neglected components of the typical network—to the extent that nearly 70% of all network-related problems result from poor cabling.
In this third edition of a widely acclaimed resource, three networking experts share their extensive experience, teaching you the cabling skills you need to build a reliable, efficient, and cost-effective network cabling infrastructure. As you master these techniques, you'll learn to avoid common pitfalls and troubleshoot problems as quickly as they arise. Coverage includes:
- Choosing the right cables and components for your network architecture and topology
- Avoiding unnecessary and unexpected costs
- Understanding the current limitations of data communications and network cabling
- Understanding how laws and building codes constrain cabling
- Understanding the function and importance of universal cabling standards
- Determining when you have a cabling-related network problem
- Assembling a complete cabling toolkit
- Integrating voice and data on the same cable system
- Setting up an infrastructure in which desktops, printers, copiers, and other nodes share cabling
- Understanding issues of bandwidth, impedance, resistance, attenuation, crosstalk, capacitance, propagation, delay, and delay skew
- Working effectively with USB and Firewire
- Knowing when to discard legacy cabling and begin anew
- Documenting your cabling
- Creating an RFP and selecting a vendor
Is there such a thing as standards for networking cabling? What is the difference between Category 5 and 5e cabling? Under what circumstances should optical fiber cabling be used? What does crosstalk have to do with networking? What is an SC connector?
If you are an Information Technology professional, these questions may be plaguing you. For most of us, we take our network cabling for granted. We plug in a computer to the wall plate and connect the corresponding outlet on the patch panel to a hub and, boom, instant network. But how did we arrive at this point? How can we design and install a cabling system to support our network (and phones!) that achieves the level of reliability and flexibility that our electrical wiring already has. (You don’t upgrade your electrical wiring every time you want to add a new light, do you?)
We have designed and written this book for Information Technology professionals and those starting out with data and voice cabling. The point of this book is to help you unravel the mysteries of your existing cabling system, choose the right cabling standard, properly design a new cabling system, understand cable testing, and pick the right cable for your desired networking technologies.
We combined our own experiences working in the IT field with the experiences of cable installers, designers, and network professionals from all over the world in order to give you the facts on networking cabling. (And Jim got to realize his lifelong dream of using the word “critter” in a technical book.)
- David Groth - Jim McBee
