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Service: Cabling Solutions
CAT5, CAT5E, CAT6, Fiber. If this sounds like a different language to you contact us. We speak your language and will help you sort through your options to help you determine what will work best for your business. Contact a Sierra Account Manager today and put our experienced certified technicians to work for you!
CAT-6 - Category 6 cable
Category 6 (CAT6) cable provides higher performance than CAT5e and features more stringent specifications for crosstalk and system noise. The quality of the data transmission depends upon the performance of the components of the channel. To transmit according to CAT6 specifications, jacks, patch cables, patch panels, cross-connects, and cabling must all meet CAT6 standards. The CAT6 components are tested individually, and they are also tested together for performance. In addition, the standard calls for generic system performance so that CAT6 components from any vendor can be used in the channel. All CAT6 components must be backward compatible with CAT5e, CAT5, and CAT3. If different category components are used with CAT6 components, then the channel will achieve the transmission performance of the lower category. For instance, if CAT6 cable is used with CAT5e jacks, the channel will perform at a CAT5e level. Fiber Specifications. The usual fiber specifications you will see are size, attenuation and bandwidth. While manufacturers have other specs that concern them, like numerical aperture (the acceptance angle of light into the fiber), ovality (how round the fiber is), concentricity of the core and cladding, etc., these specs do not affect you.
CAT5 - Category 5 cable
Category 5 (CAT5) cable is a multi-pair (usually 4 pair) high performance cable that consists of twisted pair conductors, used mainly for data transmission. Basic CAT5 cable was designed for characteristics of up to 100 MHz. CAT5 cable is typically used for Ethernet networks running at 10 or 100 Mbps.
CAT5E - Category 5 Enhanced cable
Category 5e (CAT5e) cable, also known as Enhanced Category 5, is designed to support full-duplex Fast Ethernet operation and Gigabit Ethernet. The main differences between CAT5 and CAT5e can be found in the specifications. The performance requirements have been raised slightly in the new standard (see comparison chart below). CAT5e has stricter specifications for Power Sum Equal-Level Far-End Crosstalk (PS-ELFEXT), Near-End Crosstalk (NEXT), Attenuation, and Return Loss (RL) than those for CAT5. Like CAT5, CAT5e is a 100-MHz standard, but it has the capacity to handle bandwidth superior to that of CAT5. CAT5 cable is typically used for Ethernet networks running at 100 Mbps or 1 Gbps.
Fiber Optic
Fiber Optics, as we said, is sending signals down hair-thin strands of glass or plastic fiber. The light is "guided" down the center of the fiber called the "core". The core is surrounded by a optical material called the "cladding" that traps the light in the core using an optical technique called "total internal reflection." The core and cladding are usually made of ultra-pure glass, although some fibers are all plastic or a glass core and plastic cladding. The fiber is coated with a protective plastic covering called the "primary buffer coating" that protects it from moisture and other damage. More protection is provided by the "cable" which has the fibers and strength members inside an outer covering called a "jacket".
Graded Index Multimode
Graded index multimode fiber uses variations in the composition of the glass in the core to compensate for the different path lengths of the modes. It offers hundreds of times more bandwidth than step index fiber - up to about 2 gigahertz.
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Coming Soon from Sierra
August 18, 2009
IT Managed Services is a new offering coming soon from Sierra Communications. Check back for more information soon! Imagine, a fixed IT budget with 24x7 monitoring from a company you trust. Sierra Communications new Managed Services offering will allow you to budget your support costs, and rest easy knowing your critical IT systems are being maintained at top performance....
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