Chapter 6 Definitions

Cabling that connects the equipment room to the work areas.

A single piece of installed horizontal cabling.

A cable that uses a single solid wire to transmit signals.

A cable that uses a bundle of tiny wire strands that transmit signals.  Stranded core is not quite as good a conductor as solid core, but it will stand up to substantial handling without breaking.

The amount of resistance to an electrical signal on a wire.  It is used as a relative measure of the amount of data a cable can handle.

The room where all the horizontal runs from all the work areas on a given floor in a building come together.

A metal structure used in equipment rooms to secure network hardware devices and patch panels.  Most racks are 19" wide.  Devices designed to fit in such a rack use a height measurement called units, or simply U.

A panel containing a row of female connectors (ports) that terminate the horizontal cabling in the equipment room.  Patch panels facilitate cabling organization and provide protection to horizontal cabling.

The most common connection used on the back of an RJ-45 jack and patch panels.

A device that marks the dividing line of responsibility for the functioning of a network between internal users and upstream service providers.

In a private home, the DSL or cable modem supplied by your ISP that serves as a demarc between your home network and your ISP, and most homes have an a network interface box.

Type of NIU that enables ISPs or telephone companies to test for faults in a network, such as disconnections and loopbacks.

Any cabling that runs from the network interface to whatever box is used by the customer as a demarc.

A device that merges information from multiple input channels to a single output channel.

Main patch panel in telecommunications room.

The room in a building that stores the demarc, telephone cross-connects, and Lan cross-connects.

Location where the cable comes out of the wall at the workstation location.

Cable organizing device that adheres to walls, making for a much simpler, though less neat, installation than running cables in the walls.

Bracket that acts as a holder for a face plate in cable installations.

The physical connection of wires in a network.

A generic name for a device that tests cables.  Some common tests are continuity, electrical shorts, crossed wires, or other electrical characteristics.

Term that techs use to refer to the proper connectivity of wires in a network.

Advanced cable tester that tests the length of cables and their continuity or discontinuity, and identifies the location of any discontinuity due to a bend, break, unwanted crimp, and so on.

Electrical signal interference between two cables that are in close proximity to each other.

Crosstalk at the same end of a cable from which the signal is being generated.

Crosstalk on the opposite end of a cable from the signal's source.

The measurement of the quality of the signal

The degradation of signal over distance for a networking cable.

A very powerful cable testing device used by professional installers to test the electrical characteristics of a cable and then generate a certification report, proving that cable runs pass TIA/EIA standards

Controls how multiple network devices send and receive data as a single connection.

Tester for fiber-optic cable that determines continuity and reports the location of cable breaks.