The 100Base-TX (sometimes referred to 100Base-T) cable was until 2010 perhaps the most popular cable around since it has actually replaced the older 10Base-T and 10Base-2 (Coaxial). The 100Base-TX cable provides fast speeds up to 100Mbits and is more reliable since it uses CAT5e cable (see the CAT 1/2/3/4/5 page).There is also 100Base-T4 and 100Base-FX available, which we discuss at the end of this article.

So what does 100Base-TX/T4/FX mean?

We are going to break the "100Base-T" into three parts so we can make it easier to understand:

100

The number 100 represents the frequency in MHz (Mega HertZ) for which this cable is made. In this case it is 100 MHz. The greater the MHz, the greater speeds the cable can handle. If you try to use this type of cable for greater frequencies (and, therefore, speeds) it will either not work or become extremely unreliable. The 100 MHz speed translates to 100Mbit per second, which in theory means 12 Mbps. In practice though, you wouldn't get more than 4 Mbps.

The 1000Base Ethernet standard, also referred to as Gigabit Ethernet (GbE or 1GigE) is defined by the IEEE 802.3-2008 standard and provides 10 times faster transfer speeds of 100Base Ethernet. Gigabit Ethernet has the ability to provide transfer speeds of up to 125MB/sec and is today’s industry standard for workstations, access points and access-level switches.

Gigabit Ethernet’s most popular standards are 1000Base-T twisted copper cable and 1000Base-X (Fiber Optic). Let's take a closer look at them and also analyze 10GBase - 10Gigabit Ethernet which is the standard for datacenters (server connection, network switches - backbone etc) supporting transfer speeds of up to 1250MB/sec.

1000Base-T

The 1000Base-T is the IEEE 802.3ab standard for Gigabit Ethernet over copper wiring. Similar to 100BaseT, 1000Base-T can run up to a maximum of 100 meters or 330 feet and is supported on CAT5e, CAT6 and CAT7 cabling. Users can also visit our Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP) - CAT 1 to CAT5, 5e, CAT6 & CAT7 article which contains diagrams and valuable information on each category cable, their maximum length, supported speeds and more.

With 1000Base-T, all 4 pairs of the copper cable are used, however only two pairs are used for the negotiation of the link. If the cable only has 2 pairs available, the negotiation between the two devices might succeed, however the link will not come up.

Crossover cables are not required for 1000Base-T links as the two endpoints will automatically negotiate and bring up the link even when connected via a straight-thru UTP cable.

1000Base-X

The 1000Base-X is the industry standard for Gigabit Ethernet over fiber optic. There are four Gigabit Ethernet over fiber optic standards of which the most popular are the 1000Base-SX and 1000Base-LX standards.

The 1000Base-SX standard is for operation over multi-mode fiber using 770 to 860 nanometer light wavelength. Multi-mode Gigabit Ethernet fiber can run up to 200 meters when using 62.5/125 fiber or 550 meters when using 50/125 fiber. Multi-mode Gigabit Ethernet is usually used for backbone connections between switches located in datacenter, short-distant buildings or different levels within a building.

The 1000Base-LX standard is for operation over single-mode fiber using 1,270 to 1,355 nanometer light wavelength. Single-mode Gigabit Ethernet fiber can run up to 5Km depending on the fiber type and is commonly used for backbone connections between buildings and long-distant endpoint connections.

10GBase

The 10Gigabit Ethernet standard has become popular in the past couple of years, however the IEEE standard (802.3ae) has been developed since 2002. 10Gigabit Ethernet provides speeds 10 times faster than Gigabit Ethernet and is supported over copper and fiber optic. 10Gigabit Ethernet is rarely used for endpoint connectivity (workstations, laptops) and found mainly in datacenters connecting servers, switches and storage devices. In some cases, it is also used for backbone links between buildings and switches.

Full motion video for video conferencing requires, typically, at least 25 Mb/sec. That means that a legacy Ethernet, at 10 Mbps/sec, can only deliver poor quality real-time video. With 100 Mbps/sec, however, you can be watching a broadcast presentation in one window while you're in conference with three people in three other windows (for a total of 100 megabits of bandwidth).

Consider a file server that requires 0.6 Mb/sec (6 million bits per second; 60% utilization on a 10 Mb/sec Ethernet). With a 100 Mb/sec Ethernet this server can now utilize interface hardware that can pump data down the pipe at a greatly increased rate.

It seems clear that the evolution of the industry is moving away from 10 Mb/sec Ethernet and towards the 100 Mb/sec (or higher) rates of data transfer. This section of the compendium discusses 100 Mb/sec Ethernet technology

Virtually everyone who uses Ethernet has wished from time to time that their network had a higher bandwidth. When Ethernet was being designed in the late 1970s, 10Mbps seemed immense. With today's bandwidth-intensive multimedia applications, or even with just the departmental server, that number sometimes is barely adequate. Yes, faster network technologies were available, but they were complicated and expensive. Then came Fast Ethernet.

Anyone who understands classic Ethernet already understands much about Fast Ethernet. Fast Ethernet uses the same cabling and access method as 10Base-T. With certain exceptions, Fast Ethernet is simply regular Ethernet - just ten times faster! Whenever possible, the same numbers used in the design of 10Base-T were used in Fast Ethernet, just multiplied or divided by ten. Fast Ethernet is defined for three different physical implementations.

The Implementations of Fast Ethernet:

• 100BASE-TX: Category 5
• 100BASE-FX: Multimode fibre
• 100BASE-T4: Category 3

Probably the most popular form of Fast Ethernet is 100BASE-TX. 100BASE-TX runs on EIA/TIA 568 Category 5 unshielded twisted pair, sometimes called UTP-5. It uses the same pair and pin configurations as 10Base-T, and is topologically similar in running from a number of stations to a central hub.

As an upgrade to 10Mbps Ethernet over multimode fibre (10Base-F), 100BASE-FX is Fast Ethernet over fibre. Single duplex runs are supported up to 400m and full duplex runs are supported for up to 2km.

Fast Ethernet is possible on Category 3 UTP with 100BASE-T4. There is a popular misconception that Fast Ethernet will only run on Category 5 cable. That is true only for 100BASE-TX. If you have Category 3 cable with all four pairs (8 wires) connected between station and hub, you can still use it for Fast Ethernet by running 100BASE-T4. 100BASE-T4 sends 100Mbps over the relatively slow UTP-3 wire by fanning out the signal to three pairs of wire.

This "demultiplexing" slows down each byte enough that the signal won't overrun the cable. Category 3 cable has four pairs of wire, eight wires total, running from point to point. 10Base-T only uses four wires, two pairs. Some cables only have these two pairs connected in the RJ-45 plug. If the category 3 cabling at your site has all four pairs between hub and workstation, you can use Fast Ethernet by running 100BASE-T4.

Please select on of the following sections:

Network cabling is one of the most important aspects in any network infrastructure and has become increasingly critical with the introduction of newer technologies such as blade servers, virtualization, network storage devices, wireless access points and more.

Network services such as file sharing, Internet access, network printing, email, ERP systems and more, are all delivered to the end users via the network infrastructure, which usually includes switches, fiber optic links and of course UTP cabling.

This series will focus on the different type of Ethernet copper cabling specifications, speeds and caveats of each technology.

We’ll continue with the expansion of our covered topics to cover fiber optic technology and talk about the different fiber optic cables available in the market and then jump back into the past by covering various direct cable connections used to transfer data between computers. This last section will cover extensively serial, parallel, usb ports and their different specifications/versions, plus we’ll get to talk about the variety of cables used to connect between these old-technology ports.

While many might believe the last section of this series might contain information not considered useful (serial, parallel & usb ports), you’ll be amazing on how much of this information will actually come in handy at some point in the future.

All material covered includes detailed diagrams and has been checked to ensure it is as accurate as possible.

Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP) cable is most certainly by far the most popular cable around the world. UTP cable is used not only for networking but also for the traditional telephone (UTP-Cat 1). There are seven different types of UTP categories and, depending on what you want to achieve, you would need the appropriate type of cable. UTP-CAT5e is the most popular UTP cable which came to replace the old coaxial cable that was not able to keep up with the constant growing need for faster and more reliable networks.

Characteristics of UTP

The characteristics of UTP are very good and make it easy to work with, install, expand and troubleshoot and we are going to look at the different wiring schemes available for UTP, how to create a straight through UTP cable, rules for safe operation and a lot of other cool stuff !

So let's have a quick look at each of the UTP categories available today along with their specifications:

Figure 1. The Different UTP Categories and their specifications

Category 1/2/3/4/5/6/7 – a specification for the type of copper wire (most telephone and network wire is copper) and jacks. The number (1, 3, 5, etc) refers to the revision of the specification and in practical terms refers to the number of twists inside the wire (or the quality of connection in a jack).