Twisted Pair versus Coax
Which type of Network cabling should be used :
Coax (10base2) or Twisted
Pair (UTP/10baseT / 100baseT ) ?
If you like to connect just 2 systems, you can use both, Coax (10base2) or Twisted
Pair without a hub,but using a crossed TP-cable.
For connection of 3 or more systems with Twisted Pair, a hub is
required, which is, compared to a Coax-cabling, an additional
investment.
But what about reliability ?
10base2:

what happens, when the coax-cable breaks (maybe
getting pulled out from the T-connector, because somebody stepped
on the cable ) ?
Such a fault cuts the network into 2 segments, but since you MUST
have on a coax cable at EACH end a terminator, each of these
segments are now INVALID
networks and networking on all systems will now fail:

TP/UTP
(10baseT/100baseT):

what happens, when one of the Twisted pair cable, connecting a
system with the hub, break ?
Not much: the system with the bad/broken cable is down, but the
network functionality on all other systems on this network keeps
running:
What about having to move a PC or to add a PC
to a network ?
On a coax-cabling, you have to open the
coax-cable to add an additional T-connector and an additional
cable-segment.
Opening the cable is the same as a cable fault: the
complete network is down !
On a Twisted-pair cabling, you can just un-plug a cable from the
hub and plug it in to another hub while the network is running.
Coax cable can only be used on 10 MHz networks,
while Twisted-Pair using CAT5-cabling is also able to handle 100 MHz networks.
Therefore, large networks should be using Twisted-pair cabling (CAT5 , even if you are still running 10baseT, since
it allows later to upgrade to 100baseT without having to make an
expensive re-cabling) due to the
higher reliability and the possibility to move / add systems
without having to shutdown the complete network.
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