[MLB-WIRELESS] Whats Faster ??

[Stygen]

On Tue, 2003-08-12 at 14:24, Matt Pearce wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> I am wondering what is faster for transfering data. ie. Out of
Wireless
> (2.4Ghz), Copper (Cat5e etc) and Fibre Optic, which signal travels the
> fastest from point A to point B ??
> 
> Matt.
> 

There is two different questions here.

A) What is faster for transferring data?

Both Fiber Optic and Copper wired networks can be 10, 100, or 1000 Mbps
depending on your hardware. 802.11b runs at 11Mbps half duplex (little
bit less).  So the cat-5 and fiber optic transfer speed is much faster
than 2.4GHz networking using currently available hardware.

B) Speed through medium.

It wouldn't surprise you to hear that Fiber Optic data travels at the
speed of light in plastic (for the sake of argument there is very little
difference between the speed in air).  2.4GHz also travels at the speed
of light.  The best way to explain this is to compare it to UV light.
You understand that UV light travels from the sun at the speed of
light.. well the waves used by 2.4GHz gear travels at comparable speeds,
it is the same form of energy, but with a wavelength about a million
times larger.  

Cat5 carries a maximum of 100MHz signal through copper. I could be well
wrong here, but my assumption is that the signal is carried through the
copper as per current, which involves electrons.  Since it is being
transmitted via matter rather than through it, my assumption is that the
speed would be more like the speed of sound.  Correct me if
wrong..anyone.

In any case, the latency order from fastest to slowest would probably
be;

1) 2.4GHz
2) Fiber Optic
3) CAT5

If it were a perfect world with congestion and assuming the distance to
be traversed was identical.

-Stygen


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