Comparison of UTP, Coaxial, and Fiber Optic Cabling Types

This article compares the pros and cons of Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP), Coaxial, and Fiber Optic cabling types. It discusses the construction, speed, bandwidth, distance, cost, installation, end devices, and conversion of each type. UTP is flexible and easy to install but has certain attenuation problems and works on low bandwidth. Coaxial cable has less interference but can only be used for short distances and is bulky. Fiber optic has better performance and higher bandwidth but is expensive and difficult to install. Optical fiber is used in many telecommunications companies to transmit telephone or television signals. Twisted pair cables are used for both analog and digital signals and are used for short distances. UTP is used as the last mild option in homes and offices and is most popular to use in homes. Media converters are basically used to convert copper-based signals and optical fiber. For cabling equipment need to be purchased, the equipment that is used for transferring data traffic between workstations, file servers, and internet links are repeaters, chassis, workgroup concentrators, media interference, switches, and multi-port repeaters.

Comparison between twisted pair (UTP), coaxial, and single mode fiber optic cabling types.
Table of Contents

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Unshielded Twisted pair (UTP).................................................................................................1
Pros.........................................................................................................................................1
Cons....................................................................................................................................1
Coaxial Cable.........................................................................................................................1
Fibre Optics................................................................................................................................2
Cost associated with each cable.................................................................................................4
Installation..............................................................................................................................4
End devices.............................................................................................................................4
References..................................................................................................................................5

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Unshielded Twisted pair (UTP)
It is ordinary wiring method that connect business computer to the telephone company. It is
constructed using two isolated insulated wires that help in reducing the electromagnetic
induction between wires (Fu, 2017). It is beneficial as it reduces noise ratio or ground
bounce. This type of cable wires are used in Ethernet networks and eliminates coupling
between the networks. If one wire is not working it don’t have any issue as it keep the system
working (Preschutti, 2017).
Figure 1: UTP
(Source: http://tiffanycommunication.altervista.org/twisted-pair-cable-vs-coaxial-cable-vs-
fiber-optic-cable/)
Pros
 It is very flexible
 It is cheaper in comparison with coaxial cable and optical cable.
 It is easy to operate and install

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Cons
 It has certain attenuation problem.
 It works on low bandwidth.
 It has certain level of interference involved.
Coaxial Cable
It is made by copper wire covered with metal shield. It is used for high frequency
transmission with eighty times more capability than twisted cable. It is used in radio
transmission, computer connections and television signals (Burris, & Lutz, 2017). It has two
cable one with 75 ohm and other with 50 ohm. The use of 75 ohm is to transmit video signals
over a network. Twisted pair and co-axial cable are used in used to transfer electrical signal
of television or phone (Thomas & Yu, 2017).
Figure 2: Coaxial Cable
(Source: http://tiffanycommunication.altervista.org/twisted-pair-cable-vs-coaxial-cable-vs-
fiber-optic-cable/)
Pros
 It has less interference and can be installed easily

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Cons
 It can just be used for short distance
 It is very bulky
Fibre Optics
It is made by bundle of glass threats that is used for transmitting messages using light waves.
Its transmission rate is 26k times more than twisted cables (Harwath, et. al, 2017). It could
travel up to 550 metres. It delivers same kind of services but with much wider bandwidth and
faster speed.
(Source: https://community.fs.com/blog/the-difference-between-fiber-optic-cable-twisted-
pair-and-cable.html)
Pros
 It has better performance than the other two
 Have comparatively higher bandwidth
 It can transfer data to long distance with low price and high speed

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Cons
 It is expensive and very difficult to install
Comparison between different cable wires
Figure 3: Difference on the basis speed, distance and bandwidth
(Source: https://community.fs.com/blog/the-difference-between-fiber-optic-cable-twisted-
pair-and-cable.html)
Apart from the basic construction difference they have some difference in terms of speed,
bandwidth and distance.
In case of fibre optics it has maximum speed of around 40 Gbps and bandwidth up to
47000mhz.The distance that can be covered by fibre optics is much more than twisted pair
cable and coaxial cable, it can travel the distance up to 80km (Harwath, et. al, 2017). In case
of using twisted pair cable the transmission speed is bit low that optical fibre that is up to
10Gbps. It can travel the distance up to 100 metres with the bandwidth same as optical fibre.
On the other hand, coaxial cable travel more distance that is around 500meters (Meder,
Lebedev & Becker, 2017).

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Cost associated with each cable
Fibre optic is very expensive but has maximum performance and capacity. It costs
approximately $5.65, and the price of twisted pair cable is $10.83 approximately and coaxial
cable is around $12.99 (Thomas & Yu, 2017). Fibre cable has lowest cost in comparison to
other two. If installation price is considered, optical fibre has high installation because of the
optical components used.
(Source: https://www.dit.gov.bt/sites/default/files/cablingstandard.pdf)
Installation
It can be stated that optical fibre has higher bandwidth and speed but it is not widely used as
it is difficult to install and have high installation price.
End devices
Optical fibre is used in many telecommunications companies to transmit telephone or
television signals (Harwath, et. al, 2017). Thus the devices were optical fibres are used are
electrical cabling. Twisted pair cables are used for both analog and digital signals are used for

7 | P a g e
short distances. UTP are used as the last mild option in homes and offices and is most popular
to use in homes (Kudielka, et. al, 2017).
Conversion
It is necessary to convert signals from one type to another. Media converters are basically
used to convert copper based signals and optical fibre. In case of UTP RJ-45 is used for
conversion (Higginson, Purkis & Webster, 2017). For cabling equipment need to be
purchased, the equipment that is used for transferring data traffic between workstations, file
servers, and internet links are repeaters, chassis, workgroup concentrators, media
interference, switches and multi-port repeaters.

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References
Burris, D. A., & Lutz, W. B. (2017). U.S. Patent No. 9,722,363. Washington, DC: U.S.
Patent and Trademark Office, pp.67-108.
Fu, C. (2017). Readout of the vibration of nanowires using fibre optics: Combining light
scattering and the interference effect. Physics Letters A, 381(34), 2837-2840.
Harwath, F. A., Adams, S. M., Fleming, J. P., & Paynter, J. D. (2017). U.S. Patent
Application No. 15/299,520.
Higginson, P., Purkis, D., & Webster, M. (2017). Advancing The Application of Downhole
Fibre Optics with a Novel Low Cost Disposable Deployment Method. In SPE
Offshore Europe Conference & Exhibition. Society of Petroleum Engineers, pp. 99-
189.
Kudielka, K., Benito-Hernández, F. J., Rits, W., & Martin-Neira, M. (2017). Fibre optics in
the SMOS mission. In International Conference on Space Optics—ICSO 2010 ,Vol.
10565, p. 198.
Meder, L., Lebedev, J., & Becker, J. (2017). A versatile small form factor twisted-pair TFC
FMC for MTCA AMCs. Journal of Instrumentation, 12(03), C03074.
Preschutti, J. P. (2017). U.S. Patent No. 9,748,982. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and
Trademark Office, pp.67-99.
Thomas, J., & Yu, Z. (2017). U.S. Patent No. 9,620,298. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and
Trademark Office.