5 Things You Didn’t Know About the Industrial Ethernet Network Physical Layer

    Nov. 6, 2013
    Presenters at the 2013 Belden Industrial Ethernet Infrastructure Design Seminar covered everything from network design to hardware selection to cybersecurity. Here are some facts about cabling that came up as well:

    • The connector type doesn’t matter; twist-lock vs. push-in, for example, is a matter of preference, not functionality.

    • Unlike copper ports, fiber-optic cable ports do not auto-negotiate. So if a device on one end operates at 1 Gb speed, the device on the other end must operate at that speed or communications won’t work.

    • Fiber-optic cable has Kevlar strands in it for rigidity and tensile strength, so it’s not as fragile as you might think. It can be pulled through conduit. Just pick the right jacketing for the application.

    • Hirschmann invented proprietary Ethernet ring technology. Other vendors have their own ring technologies, and these do not interoperate.

    • Hirschmann/Belden has a software application for managing Ethernet devices. It will find all devices on a network, regardless of brand, find out what each is connected to, and draw you a map of the network.

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