Copper and Fibre Connectivity Methods PDF
Document Details
Uploaded by Deleted User
Tags
Summary
This document provides an overview of copper and fibre connectivity methods. It explains the fundamental differences between copper and fibre optic cables, including transmission methods and applications. The file also discusses wired versus wireless networking.
Full Transcript
hi i\'m going to talk about the two major wired options which you can use to connect up a network and these are copper and fiber so starting with a more basic less interesting one which is copper cables so copper cables just use electricity to transfer the data so copper cable copper is meta...
hi i\'m going to talk about the two major wired options which you can use to connect up a network and these are copper and fiber so starting with a more basic less interesting one which is copper cables so copper cables just use electricity to transfer the data so copper cable copper is metal a typical copper cable will have multiple wires so a wire is just a long stick of metal or some other material the cable is multiple wires grouped together so here we\'ve got a big cable we\'ve got one two three four five mini cables with loads of individual wires in each of those mini cables so typically a copper cable will have lots of kind of like wrapped around bits of copper with things like rubber and casing to link it all together so copper uses electricity usually it\'s used in businesses for quite short connections obviously ones which need wires it won\'t be used longer term that you wouldn\'t use it stretching miles and miles and miles because it\'s not the most quick or efficient way to communicate now copper is used because it can conduct electricity really well not as well as something like silver but clearly copper is quite cheap compared to things like silver and gold which would be better in theory now in terms of evaluating copper copper does have an issue when not insulated properly in this picture we\'ve got some rubber surrounding the cables that is what we call insulation insulation keeps the individual wires contained and without insulation the wires can interfere with each other now what that means is when one wire is carrying electricity it can affect the wires around it just down to how electricity works and that means potentially you might have errors because if one wire is affecting is interfering with another wire that may lead to errors and they may slow things down it may mean stuff has to get resent if it is interfering and so better copper cables will have insulation to try and reduce this happening **Fibre Cables** ---------------- in comparison slightly more fancier option is fiber so fiber also called fiber optic or optical fiber doesn\'t use electricity to send the data instead uses light so fibre cables do require some electricity but not to send the data the data is sent by flashing a laser near enough down a wire and that is how the data is transferred remember data is being sent as binary binary is just zeros and ones and so you can imagine a light being pulsed on and off really really fast can be used to send binary data now the wire itself sort of has two parts to it really here we\'ve got two cables each one has got sort of two end parts that\'s because to send and receive data you need separate pathways otherwise the light is going to absorb each other each beam is going to get absorbed and it will be a mess so they\'re kept separate going in different directions a bit like our road would be now the actual cable itself is usually made of quite thin and flexible either glass or plastic it is flexible you can bend it slightly but not nearly as much as copper so copper can be bent as much as you want pretty much you won\'t damage it too much it\'s very malleable it\'s a proper word fiber cables are not awful they\'re not totally rigid but you can\'t bend it a lot otherwise it might snap and damage so they are less flexible than copper but in terms of a better thing i\'m sure you know this from adverts and so on but fiber is faster so we can transfer more data at a time and the proper language is higher bandwidth the bandwidth of a network is how much data can get sent at any time and fiber gives you more bandwidth than copper by quite a big amount so if you want a faster network fibre is a better option but as things tend to go the higher performing is for more expensive it is so that\'s why fiber is often used for longer distances over short distances there is not much difference between copper and fiber you might as well just use copper because it\'s cheaper but if you are having to use a lot of cable five will be better because it\'s much faster and it\'ll be a bigger difference but as i say it\'s also quite brittle so to turn it around tight corners and you know to wedge it through certain areas you might not be able to use it it might have to be copper instead **Wired vs Wireless** --------------------- okay well hopefully you can evaluate copper versus fiber but also just to think slightly bigger and evaluate using a wide network versus a wireless network and we\'re going to talk more about wireless in the next video so look at it here from just a a wired versus wireless perspective because it\'s a really really common exam question basically so why are wide networks generally quite a good thing no matter whether you pick fiber or copper well often wide is a bit more stable and a bit more reliable than things like wi-fi doesn\'t tend to have as many errors generally speaking and because you\'ve got physical wires it\'s much harder to intercept data in a wide network a hacker someone trying to view your data would have to go in and actually physically attach a device to your cables which is much harder to do or something like wi-fi or bluetooth is out of the air where anybody could be around and use their device to receive the signals you can\'t limit it to a wire and so security wise wired is much better but also in terms of range as you know things like wi-fi and bluetooth haven\'t got the longest range whereas wires haven\'t got an infinite range both firebat and copper will weaken over time but generally it\'s a longer range than wireless but in terms of limitations wi-fi and other wireless networks are much more flexible wired networks are not very flexible it\'s hard to add a new device you\'ve got to plug it in you\'ve got a route some wire down a corridor or through a wall or something like that also how to change your arrangement if you decide to suddenly change your network from a a ring to a star or or to a bus you\'ve only got to again move wires around buy more wire drill through a wall all that sort of stuff is harder with a wired network wireless just connect no problem at all but also wires can get messy and take up space and can actually be a hazard right it could be a fire hazard it could be a trip hazard they can get very messy very quickly especially as your network gets quite big so wireless can be better but if you want stability and better security wired is often preferable English (auto-generated)