Transmission media types and applications

Tranmission Media

Transmission Media

The media that has been used to transmit data over the years has advanced very far over the years. The last two to three decades in particular has been the stage for much of that progress given the explosion of personal computer and internet use that started in the mid-1990's. More than half a dozen different wired Ethernet standards have come about in that time frame with Gigabit Ethernet available for home use at very little cost to the consumer.

Wireless communications including MIMO have come as well. After starting very slow at 10-11 mbps with the B. standard, there have since been updates to the G (54 mbps) and N (150+) standards. The aforementioned MIMO technology allows multiple antennas to increase the overall throughput of the wireless communications.

Not all wireless internet has been a good thing. A good example of this was the TJX wireless internet screw up where they used cracked WEP encryption and it was compromised over a long period of time in a way that allowed credit card information to be stolen by several perpetrators. There have also been issues with the exploding use of wireless phones thus clogging up mobile phone networks with traffic thus slowing down the traffic for everyone. There has also been doomsday talk about all the IP addresses being taken up thus necessitating a six-part IP address but that is a limitation of the transmission hardware rather than the cables themselves.

Not all the news has been bad though. Rather than being anchored to a computer Ethernet cable-connected (or phone cable before that), people are able to plug in a USB or PC Card modem into their laptop and use their Internet wherever they want. Similar connection media options exist for people that don't want to run Ethernet cable or jacks to all areas of the house. Many restaurants and other locations offered per-use charge or free Wi-Fi so that people can use wireless internet at their locations.

Mobile phone technology allows internet use wherever cell reception is viable, which would be the case for most decent-sized cities. The throughput capabilities of the networks and the phones kept the accessibility options as compared to computers pretty simple but the technology improvements with transmission media have greatly improved that condition over the least 5-10 years.

Transmission media impacts for bigger cities are an issue worthy of consideration as well. Urban sprawl with many new houses and office buildings have necessitated running lots of transmission cable through the neighborhoods so that everyone gets the bandwidth they need, when they need it.