Source: BIG BUILDER Magazine
Publication date: July 1, 2005
By William Gloede
OF ALL THE APPLICATIONS for wire in a new house, nothing comes close to the complexity of the wiring needed to allow for true home connectivity. Unlike electrical cabling or telephone or cable TV wires, digital homes will require between two and five types of cable, each of which serves a specific purpose. One must be the current standard for computer Ethernet networks, CAT 5 (or CAT 6, the newer generation of the same cable). It has a maximum data speed of 100 megabits-per-second (Mbps), plenty fast for computer networks, but not fast enough for high-definition digital video and multi-channel digital sound.
So another must be coaxial cable, which, besides being the transmission medium for all cable and satellite TV services, can be used to carry any kind of digital data. It has a maximum data speed of 270 Mbps, which is sufficient for several streams of digital high-definition video and multi-channel sound, as they both exist now. The third is speaker wire—plain old copper wire, usually 18 gauge or lower for high fidelity—for whole-house audio systems, although they can be wired through a home Ethernet network if amplifiers are distributed around the home.
Then there are wires for specific applications, such as Digital Video Interface (DVI) or High-Definition Media Interface (HDMI).
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