network basic q's

I would like to ask some people some basic stuff about networks .

I have winxp 2.0ghz and another similar oc with a wireless connection off a router.

q)1 pc ha sa UTP cable and I believe it is ethernet cat3 10/100 baseT. Now the cat3 is the type of cable, the ethernet is the protocol it uses to send packets of information, and 10/100baseT is the cable capability which is a max of 10mbs on the net to 100mbs on a non tcp/ip Lan. Correct me if I am wrong with my information?

q) routers thesedays have made switches and hubs redundant for a Lan?

 

cat3 is pretty out of date. consider uping it to cat5, cat5e, or even cat6 nowadays. 10baset, 100baset, 1000baset means this. 10 would be the speed. 10megabits/sec, 100megabits/sec, 1000megabits or 1 gigabit/sec.

base means baseband, t means twisedpair


routers have not made switched obsolete. they are both used in networks. switches made hubs obsolete in that switches have eliminated collisions. collisions are when packets are sent at the same time over the same line and literally collide with eachother. switches break up collision domains. routers break up broadcast domains. router will also let you communicate between different networks. say your business environment is subnetted, a router will let you communicate between the different logical networks.

switches are used with routers. when you buy a home router, what youre plugging into is in essence a switch connected to a router.

hubs are known as dumb devices in that they forward info out all ports, most without any form of "intelligence". meaning they do not know where the information is meant to go. so they give it to everything plugged into the ports. switches on the other hand look at the MAC address which is the unchangeable number burned into the NIC when manufactured. typically looks something like that: ff.ff.ff.ff.ff.ff the 'f' will be changed to other hex numbers. the switch will then forward the information only to the mac address it was intended. switches will build a forward/filter table when nodes are added. if the switch does not know where the information is meant to go, it will "flood" the ports and build that table. the table is basicly what eliminates collisions.
cisco equipment will allow you to do ALOT more stuff using different protocols used with switching and routing. most businesses will use cisco because of the stuff that can be done with these devices.

hope that helped a little.

 

Some things that were overlooked.

Cat3 is not 10/100.

Its 10mbit. When you see something classified as 10/100, it doesnt mean it runs faster on non tcp/ip networks, it means those are the two speeds it will run at.

So if you see a gigabit adapter, it will run at 10/100/1000mbit.

 

q) what does a switch do that a router cannot?

q) why say something runs at speed 100/10 when of course you can run at 10mbs if you can do it at 100mbs?

q)i know broadband is use in internet but what is baseband?

 

a switch just forwards information to its destination. routers handle more advanced networking stuff such as "routing". when a computer on network A needs to send information to a computer on network B, its needs to go thru some sort of routing device to get there. a switch cannot do that. your home router is only a router because of the WAN port connecting your external IP to your internel network.

if the media has the ability to run at 100mbps, it will. 10/100 just means that if your NIC can only run 10mbps, the device sending t he info supports it.

broadband and baseband are pretty advanced electronic terms. best thing to do is search wikipedia to get a definition for them.

 

Not that advanced.

Broadband and baseband are both signalling types over a network.

Baseband is considerably slower, and can send and receive info, but not at the same time.
(Dial up is baseband).

Broadband can send and receive at the same time, and is considerably faster. (cable, etc).

You can get more involved in definiton, of course.