Installation guide

Page xv
About 10BASE-2
About 10BASE-2
Thin Ethernet, as defined by the IEEE 802.3 specifications, is also called
10BASE-2. 10BASE-2 is similar to 10BaseT, but one way in which they differ
is in the type of cable used. A 10BaseT network uses unshielded, twisted-
pair (UTP) cable, while a 10BASE-2, or thin network, uses thin coaxial cable.
Some advantages to using coaxial cable include the fact that the cable is
widely used for network installations, it’s easy to install, and it withstands
outside interference better than twisted pair while maintaining the same
high transfer rate.
A thin Ethernet network is arranged in a linear or “bus” topology. The illus-
tration below shows an example of this topology. In networking, topology
refers to the physical layout of the cabling and network devices. A bus topol-
ogy uses a single cable to carry the network’s signals. Devices are con-
nected directly to this cable, also known as a backbone cable.
The connections to the backbone cable are sometimes called taps. For thin
Ethernet connections, you use a BNC T-connector that attaches directly to a
BNC socket on a 10BASE-2-compatible adapter. The bus topology has two
ends that must be terminated electrically with a resistor (called a terminator)
to complete the bus.
BNCHub 194-00A Book Page xv Wednesday, October 15, 1997 3:51 PM