September 2000

Contents

1 Introduction

2 Basics Applied Mathematics

4 Basic Physics - Optical

5 Communications Theory

6 Local Area Networking and Associated Cabling

7 Copper Cable Technology - Cable

8 Copper Cable Technology - Components

9 Copper Cable Technology - Transmission Characteristics

10 Copper Cable Technology - Testing

11 Optical Cable Technology - Optical Fibre

12 Optical Cable Technology - Cable

13 Optical Cable Technology - Components

14 Optical Cable Technology - Testing

15 Cable System Design and International Standards

Appendix I List of Relevant Standards

Appendix II Contact Addresses for Standards’ Publishers

Index

This book is presented as a formal textbook for students studying courses such as the NVQ (National Vocational Qualifications) and City & Guilds and BTEC and B.Sc. courses in communications engineering in the UK., and the courses for Certified Electronics Technician, Certified Fiber Optics Installer, Certified Network Systems Technician and Telecommunications Electronics Technician in the U.S. It also serves as a background reader for the U.S. BICSI® courses.

The book covers material that students would be expected to know for the Datacommunications courses of the American Electronics Technicians Association and the British City & Guilds course 3466, Copper and Optical Communications, plus most other telecommunications and datacommunications C&G courses such as Telecommunications and Electronics Engineering (2720, 2760 and 3478). The book is also aimed at NVQ (and SNVQ) students studying copper and fibre communications technology, levels one to five, and also for any future qualifications generated by the European Institute of Telecommunications Engineering and the European Intelligent Buildings Group. Students studying for BICSI qualifications, such as RCDD, will also find this book helpful, especially in the area of European and International standards.

Students studying BTEC and degree courses on electronic and communications engineering will, from time to time, require some link between the theoretical and the practical. Hopefully they will find it between these pages. Readers will certainly come across technical definitions of communications theory and practice never before gathered together within one book.

Apart from use as a formal textbook it is also presented as an aid for I.T. managers, consultants, cable installation engineers and system designers who need to understand the technology and physics behind the subject and the vast panoply of standards that accompany it. The book does not present itself as a design manual for structured cabling but rather explains the terminology and physics behind the standards, what the relevant standards are, how they fit together, and where to obtain them from. Anybody studying this book will be able to read the standards, understand manufacturers’ data sheets and their conflicting claims and be suitably equipped to address those problems raised by the need to design, procure, install and correctly test a modern cabling system, using both copper and optical fibre cable technology.