Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!mit-eddie!bu-cs!kwe
From: kwe@bu-cs.BU.EDU (kwe@bu-it.bu.edu (Kent W. England))
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.lans
Subject: Re: Shielded vs. Unshielded
Summary: Unshielded
Message-ID: <33885@bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Date: 26 Jun 89 16:05:39 GMT
References: <4015@quest.UUCP>
Reply-To: kwe@buit13.bu.edu (Kent England)
Followup-To: comp.dcom.lans
Organization: Boston U. Information Technology
Lines: 20

In article <4015@quest.UUCP> stone@quest.UUCP (Scott Stone) writes:
>
>The cost of shielded is not considerably more than unshielded, seems to
>be a safer option, and would give an upward growth path in the event we
>want to run twisted pair ethernet, rather than (or along with) the RS-232 
>serial we use now.
>
	The cost of shielded *cable* may not be "considerably" more
than the cost of unshielded, but the cost of installation is
substantially more.  You can run Ethernet on unshielded twisted pair
(UTP).  You can even run 16M token ring on unshielded.  Ungermann-Bass
offers hardware to do this (at least they have offered a press release
:-).

	So, what are you needing the shielded cable for?  Unshielded
you can use for everything you have today.  As for tomorrow, start
thinking about fiber, not shielded twisted pair.

	I will listen to arguments for thin Ethernet coax vis a vis
UTP Ethernet...  I think UTP is the way to go, however.