X Real-World LAN Cabling
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Todays LAN is almost always wired with CAT 5 cable for the segments while the backbone is fiber-optics (except in the smallest LAN environments).
With the distance limit of fiber-optics being measured in a few kilometers, fiber optic LAN backbones are not workable when you are required to connect an office across town. Well talk more about networking over longer distances in the chapter on Wide Area Networking and Remote Access.
In the real world, network architecture requirements can change over time. This is yet another factor to consider when choosing how to wire a LAN, because proper planning on the front end can minimize the work required to implement changes later. Perhaps several users on a segment are making especially heavy use of the network. As a network administrator, you might want to keep the other users on that segment happy by moving those two bandwidth hogs to their own segment, keeping them from slowing down the work of the rest of the users. Special devices such as patch panels and crossover cables can be used to maximize the flexibility of your network configuration, and minimize the number of cables youll have to move when reconfiguring your network.
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