Network cables are everywhere, and the gigantic steps forward they have taken over recent years means that most of us can take advantage of fibre-optic broadband giving us high speed connections and remarkably swift download speeds.
But if you follow digital communication backwards to its roots, you may be surprised at just how far they have evolved over a fairly short space of time.
The Beginning
Digital communication can be traced all the way back to 1844, when Samuel Morse developed the code that bears his name and used his invention, ‘The Telegraph’, to set the foundations on which all future communication was based.
The printing telegraph machine that followed, with a typewriter keyboard, gave everybody the opportunity to send and receive messages.
Jump forward to the 1970s, and Ethernet arrived on the scene. Produced initially by the Xerox Corporation, they joined forces with Intel to create a standardised Ethernet system that everybody could use. With the publication of the first telecommunications cabling standard in 1991, came the birth of the structured cabling system that led us to where we are now.
This is how it has gone since the inception of digital communication, a product is invented, and then it is opened out to the whole of society.
Where are we now?
In the 40 or so years since the invention of Ethernet, the changes, adjustments, and improvements to the technology have been tremendous.
The Ethernet standard of the 1980s operated at 10 Mb/s. By 1995 this had moved up to 100Mb/s. Ethernet’s next reinvention came in 1998, where the speed increased again, this time to 1000Mb/s.
Today, the number stands much higher, media systems now carry 40Gb/s and 100Gb/s over fibre-optic, which is a long way away from the 10Mb/s that was the standard a mere 30 years earlier.
Network cables are a prime example of how the human race develops and evolves an idea, consistently making it greater, and more helpful to society as a whole.
What Does This Mean For You?
This rapid evolution has two effects on you, me, and the rest of society. The first is that we are able to use a speed of internet that was beyond the imagination just a decade ago, meaning that the possibilities are literally endless.
The second effect is that the world of network cables is now incredibly confusing! There are companies who are there to help you understand the ins and outs of this ever evolving technology.
But once you understand, there is still the matter of installation, maintenance, and repair. We can’t all be professionals at this, and that is why it is vital for companies to exist who can install and maintain your cables for you.
The world is literally at your fingertips, and the main reason for this is the development of network cables after the past 50 years, and can be traced back even 100 years before that. We have always been searching for a quicker way to communicate, now we can all take advantage of instant messaging, and we owe it all to the work of Samuel Morse and his contemporaries.
Sam Barton is the marketing assistant at Project Skills Solutions, which provides electrical installation, CCTV, network solutions, air con and building maintenance in and around Essex.