20
Glossary
1 0 B A S E - T
Unshielded, twisted pair cable with an RJ-45 connector, used with Ethernet LAN. “10”
indicates the speed (10 Mbps), “Base” refers to baseband technology, and “T” means
twisted pair cable.
C a b l e T V C o a x
Cable that allows wide bandwidth transmission over long distances. Coaxial cable
(coax) comprises an inner conductor surrounded by insulation. An outer conductor
wraps around the insulation, which, in turn, is covered by an outer plastic covering.
Ethernet card
A plug-in circuit board installed in an expansion slot of a personal computer. The
Ethernet card (sometimes called a Network Interface Card, or NIC) takes parallel data
from the computer, converts it to serial data, puts it into a packet format, and sends it
over the 10BASE- T LAN cable.
F c o n n e c t o r
A type of coaxial connector, labeled RF on the rear of the Toshiba Cable Modem, that
connects the modem to the cable system.
H e a d e n d
The equipment, in the central office of the service provider, where the cable signals
originate.
Hybrid Fiber/ Coaxial ( H F C ) s y s t e m
A system where the trunk of the cable plant is of fiber technology. Somewhere near
the subscriber ’s home, the fiber is connected to a coaxial cable, and the signal is
converted so that it’s compatible with the fiber media. The coaxial cable then runs
through the branches of the network and is finally dropped into the home.
H U B
A device used to connect multiple computers to the cable modem.
Internet
A collection of interconnected networks used for worldwide computer-based
communications.
I P A d d r e s s
A unique, 32-bit address assigned to every device in a network. An IP (Internet
Protocol) address has two parts: 1) a network address and 2) a host address. Each
network is assigned an address by a government agency, and each company
administrator assigns an address to each host computer.
