A type of transmission medium consisting o two insulating wires twisted together to improve its immunity to interference from other electrical signals that might otherwise corrupt the signal being transmitted.A transmission medium which is very common and used for both types of signals( Analog, digital) is Twisted pair. It is very available on very cheap prices as compared to coaxial cable, optical fiber and is easier to work with. Amplifiers are used, if twisted pair is used for analog signals. Two Types of twisted pairs exist, one is known as unshielded twisted pair and other is known as Shielded twisted Pair.
Unshielded Twisted Pair: it is the least expensive of all the transmission media commonly used for LANs and it is very easy to install. Categories of UTP are given below.
(1) Category 1
(2) Category 2
(3) Category 3
(4) Category 4
(5) Category 5
Shielded Twisted Pair: As its name specify that a shield is used in STP. This shield provides the protection to the wires and reduces interference. If we compare STP with UTP then STP is more expensive than UTP. On the other hand its biggest advantage is that it provides better performance at high data rates.
Unshielded Twisted Pair: it is the least expensive of all the transmission media commonly used for LANs and it is very easy to install. Categories of UTP are given below.
(1) Category 1
(2) Category 2
(3) Category 3
(4) Category 4
(5) Category 5
Shielded Twisted Pair: As its name specify that a shield is used in STP. This shield provides the protection to the wires and reduces interference. If we compare STP with UTP then STP is more expensive than UTP. On the other hand its biggest advantage is that it provides better performance at high data rates.