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Transmission media is the path in which electrical signal travels from one place to other. Internet is a combination of different transmission media. We have cable medium like traditional twisted pair, coaxial cables, fiber optics or the wireless.
We have to choose the type of media based on the protocol, topology of the network. These Transmission media operate at Layer 1 of the OSI model.
The speed of the internet which is expressed as number of bits per second also depends on the type of the wiring we use for the internet access.
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Twisted pair and Coaxial cable:
We get unshielded or shielded twisted pairs which are generally used for telephone communication.
These are cheaper compared to the fiber optics and but are not as fast, secure and reliable as the fiber optics.
The Twisted pair and coaxial cable provide up to 1 MHz and 1 GHz respectively.
Fiber optics:
This is very expensive and requires special hardware technology. But it provides great speed, security and less noise interference. Fiber optics can provide the internet speed of up to 10 Gbps.
Wireless:
Some of the networks are wireless using any of high frequency radio signals, satellite, microwave or infrared. Wireless networks are the better choice if some of the older buildings do not allow installing cables.
Wireless transmission generally provides slow speed than the wired fiber optics. Satellite can provide up to 100 GHz of bandwidth. Also there will be lot of disturbances in the wireless transmission and are less secure.
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