With today's ultra-fast transmission of data between computers in homes and offices, how you wire a premise will determine if you have the capabilities to match the requirements demanded of your system. Typically, you will be running unshielded twisted-pair (UTP) cable throughout your installation and will need to determine what kind of data throughput and speeds you require.

There are three categories that have been established for UTP cables and their respective connecting hardware. The three categories are:

• Category 3 - typically used for voice and data transmission up to 16MHz and 10 Mbps such as 10Base-T Ethernet

• Category 4 - With characteristics specified up to 26 MHz, they are used for voice and data transmission rates up to 16 Mbps

• Category 5 - When requirements are specified at 100 MHz and transmission rates of 100 Mbps, this is your category. This category would be typical for an installation of 100base-X

• Enhanced Category 5 - When you want to be prepared for tomorrow's applications, the characteristics also provide 100 MHz for Fast Ethernet and 155 Mbps ATM applications

Some Helpful Terms:

• Backbone - A portion of a network that provides the transport facilities to route information from source to destination

• Broadband - A transmission technique that allows multiple signals to be carried simultaneously

• Coaxial Cable - Cable with an inner conductor surrounded by an insulator and an outer shield. Used in broadband applications such as cable television

• Ethernet - A type of local area network (LAN) using coaxial cable at speeds of 10 Mbps

• Fiber Optic Cable - Glass or plastic fibers that are used to carry digital light signals. They are used to support transmission speeds around 100 Mbps

• Modem - Specifically, "modulate, de-modulate". A device that is able to convert analog signals into digital signals for transmission over long distances