Which WAN Technology Is It?

About this interactive

The lesson's last-mile and site-to-site technologies: - **Fiber**: light over glass, long distances with little loss, many signals on different wavelengths; SONET (North America) and SDH (global); to the home, building or node (FTTH, FTTB, FTTN). - **T1 or E1**: legacy leased lines, T for North America at 1.544 Mbps and E for Europe at 2.048 Mbps, ending at a CSU/DSU. (A T3 runs at 44.736 Mbps; the video's 34.368 Mbps is an E3.) - **DSL**: digital subscriber line over phone copper, needs a DSLAM at the central office and a home within about three miles; ADSL is asymmetric and SDSL symmetric. - **Cable**: data over the TV coax with DOCSIS; homes share a neighborhood hub that can saturate. Dial-up and ISDN (circuit-switched), and frame relay and ATM (packet-switched services), are sorted by type in the 0020 activity.

What you'll learn

Identify a WAN technology (fiber, T1 or E1, DSL, cable) from its traits, speeds and the equipment it needs
Explain the limits of each: distance for DSL, a shared hub for cable, legacy speeds for T1 and E1

Aligned to

Cisco CCNA

1.2 Describe characteristics of network topology architectures

1.3 Compare physical interface and cabling types

Key terms

Fiber Optic: A network transmission medium that carries data as pulses of light through a glass or plastic strand rather than as electrical signals over copper, enabling very high speeds and immunity to electromagnetic interference. Fiber optic cables are used for high-bandwidth runs such as backbone links, long-distance WAN connections, and data center interconnects.
T1/E1: Legacy digital transmission standards providing dedicated WAN bandwidth; T1 operates at 1.544 Mbps (North America) and E1 at 2.048 Mbps (Europe).
Digital Subscriber Line: A last-mile connection technology that delivers internet service over existing telephone lines.
Cable: A WAN access technology that delivers high-speed internet over coaxial cable infrastructure using the DOCSIS standard, shared among users in a neighborhood hub.
Channel Service Unit/Data Service Unit: A WAN device that connects a router's serial interface to a digital leased line such as a T1, providing signal conditioning, clocking, and line termination. The CSU interfaces with the carrier network while the DSU interfaces with the router's DTE.

Topics

Wan Wan Technologies Fiber T1 Dsl Cable Interactive Categorize

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