Ethernet Networking
Decisive:IT working with you and our carefully chosen cabling contractors to provide your users the best possible Ethernet experience, we can do pre-sales site surveys and give advice on the best Ethernet solution(s) to meet your needs now and in the future.
Cat 5e
Category 5e cable, is a twisted pair cable for carrying signals. This type of cable is used in structured cabling for computer networks such as Ethernet, either in UTP Unshielded Twisted Pair or STP Shielded Twisted Pair. The cable standard provides performance of up to 100 MHz and is suitable for 10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX (Fast Ethernet), and 1000BASE-T (Gigabit Ethernet). Cat 5e is also used to carry other signals such as telephony, video, TV and Audio.
Cat 6
Category 6 cable, is a standardised twisted pair cable for Gigabit Ethernet and other network physical layers that is backward compatible with the Category 5/5e and Category 3 cable standards. Compared with previous cabling standards, Cat 6 features more stringent specifications for crosstalk and system noises. The cable standard provides performance of up to 250 MHz whilst Cat 6A provides performance up to 500Mhz. Both are suitable for 10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX (Fast Ethernet), 1000BASE-T/1000BASE-TX (Gigabit Ethernet), and 10GBASE-T (10-Gigabit Ethernet). Cat 6/6A can also be used to carry other signals such as telephony, video, TV and Audio.
Cat 7/7A and 8
International standard ISO/IEC 11801 Information technology — Generic cabling for customer premises specifies general-purpose telecommunication cabling systems (structured cabling) that are suitable for a wide range of applications (analog and ISDN telephony, various data communication standards, building control systems, factory automation). It covers both balanced copper cabling and optical fibre cabling. Originally the Category 7 cable standard was created to allow 10 Gigabit Ethernet over 100 m of copper cabling. With performance of 600Mhz for Cat 7 and 1000Mhz for Cat 7A.
Cat 8 standards are still in development but will offer performance up to 2000Mhz and will be fully backwards compatible. Cat 8.1 with Cat 6 and Cat 8.2 with Cat 7 cabling.
D-Link Switches
The building blocks of the network, D-link has an extensive range of Ethernet switches to suit everyone from the smallest of start-ups to large enterprise customers. Small businesses can choose from a range of basic 5-10 port switches, while at the high end stackable products can cope with up to 336 ports altogether, with plenty of options in between.
