Newsgroups: comp.dcom.lans
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: What *is* "twisted pair"? (was Re: Thick or Thin Ethernet?)
Message-ID: <1991Jan21.040040.8435@zoo.toronto.edu>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <3832@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> <1991Jan16.175003.2978@zoo.toronto.edu> <6314@ecs.soton.ac.uk>
Date: Mon, 21 Jan 1991 04:00:40 GMT

In article <6314@ecs.soton.ac.uk> tjc@ecs.soton.ac.uk (Tim Chown) writes:
>What exactly is "twisted pair" and what are its performance
>characteristics when compared against conventional (thin) ethernet?

More formally, it's "unshielded twisted pair", more or less high-quality
phone wiring.  It runs at the same speed as all other Ethernet, 10 Mbps.
Distance is limited to something like 100m, as I recall.

>You mention that you run the twisted pair back to a central hub. Does
>this mean a separate connection to each office from the hub? 

Yes.  Twisted-pair is point-to-point, not bussed.  This means more wire.
But it's cheap wire, possibly even already-installed wire.  And the star
configuration has the enormous advantage that foulups are often confined
to a single host, instead of ruining network connectivity for an entire
bussed cable with dozens of hosts on it.  It still looks like regular
Ethernet to the hosts; the hubs are just electrical connection points,
so to speak, not routers, so everybody still hears all packets.
-- 
If the Space Shuttle was the answer,   | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
what was the question?                 |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu   utzoo!henry