Computer network media (Preparing Network Cable)

Every one will agree with me that computer is taking over our world. The once popular type writer is almost becoming a history cutesy of the computer. Needles to ask why if you have ever used a computer, you will see its numerous application to our daily lives.

Computer networking is the process of connecting computers together so that one can easily access data from any of the computers in the network directly from your computer without having to get up from your sit to retrieve the data from the computer is located. We can now see how important networking is in computing. Ever wondered how you were able to have access to this article from the comfort of your home just by connecting to the Internet and typing the address in the universal resource locator (URL), well for your information, this is made possible through computer networking. If you don't know, the Internet is a network of computers across the globe.

I shall not give details on computer network in this article, if you want details on computer networking, the check out my page on Basic Computer Network.

For two of more computers to be connected together, there must be a media of connection between them. This connection media could be; a cable (cat. 1 to cat. 5, coaxial, fibre optics, etc) or space for wireless networking used mostly in Wide Area Network (WAN) which uses radio frequency, infrared, etc, to transmit.

This is the part that goes into your device; you connect your cable to it and then connect it to your device.

 This is used to test your cable to see if it is working. It is quite expensive and you will not need it if you follow the steps I will be giving below properly.

     The cat.5 cable allows a data speed of 100Mb/S and point to point distance of 100 metres. It has 8 wires in it, each with different colour; green, brown, orange, blue, white + orange, white +blue, white + brown, white + blue. As shown in the diagram below;

There two basic ways to prepare a cat.5 network cable. They are; cross over and straight through cables. The cross over cable is used to connect two computers together, network two or more hubs, switches, bridges, routers together. The straight through type is used to network a computer and a hub, switch, bridge, or router. Having known when and where to use either of the cable type and equipped with your tools, let us proceed to explain how to prepare each of these cable types.

As the name applies, straight through configuration is done by connecting the cables according to their colours. That is green to green, brown to brown, etc.

1. Get the CAT.5 cable, strip off about one inch of the outer layer covering the main cables. The cables inside are twisted; I won't go into details explaining the idea behind twisting the cables because it is beyond the scope of this hub.
2. Untwist the cables and stretch them to make them straight and then cut off their tips with    your crimper to make them clean and well aligned.
3. Get your RJ-45 connector, and carefully insert the cables to each connector's port.           Push as far as it could go ensuring that they did not bend.
4. Lastly, fit the connector into the slot of the crimper and crimp, then press down the           crimper applying little pressure.

Follow the same procedure above to crimp the other end of the cable taking the cable's colour into consideration. That is cable 1 should go into port 1 of the connector;Cable 2 should also be in port 2 of connector, etc. This procedure is for straight through connection.

                                           Crossover Cable

Using the cable numbering shown in fig.2. Swap the cables thus; number 1 in one end goes to port 3 of the connector. number goes to port 6, number 3 goes to port of the connector and number 6 of the cable goes to port 2 of the connector.

That is; 1 to 3; 2 to 6, 3 to 1, and 6 to 2. Do same to the other end of the cable.

Now you can connect your computer directly with each other or connect it to a network segmentation device.