Telco-Babble

by Android

The etymological origin of the word telecommunications is derived from Greek word tele as defined in the book of Webster as to "travel a distance over."

And communication is defined as a system for sending and receiving messages, as by telephone, telegraph, radio, etc.

Now that we have an understanding of the concept, let us proceed into the subject and shed some light on it.

This is inspired with respect to our brethren Catatonic Dismay who wrote "Copper Pair Color Coding" in Vol. 15, No. 4.  I was enlightened to read the article so that others reading about what was written can understand the information in their quest for knowledge in the Information Age.

What was explained was the color code.  The color code is the foundation to understanding the wires that are used for our telephone connections.  When you see a telephone cable, it will be a dull silver/grayish color and will have a variety of different colors of wires.  When you strip the wire, it is copper.  And of course, copper is a conductor of electricity.

All of the wires have different specified colors with respect to the color code.  Understanding the sequence will help you understand how to connect it to a 66 punch block, for example.  Encountering other types of cable with the wires inside will show the various colors of the wires.  It will be in a different sequence, but the concept applies as it does to all other telephony cable.  Now that there is clarity to the purpose for the wire, I'll expand on the different types of terminology pertaining to how the cable is defined.

For the standard telephony cable, inside there are 25 pairs of color-coded wires.  The definition for the 25 pairs of wires is called a "binder."  From the definition of a binder, we can expand our telco jargon.  One super-binder has 25 binders with 625 pairs.

One mega-binder is equivalent to 25 super-binders.  And last, one ultra-binder has 25 mega-binders or 39,625 pairs of colored wires.  This is equivalent to one ultra-fiber optic cable.

That wasn't too hard now... was it?

What I forgot to add was that for telephony cable, when there are more than several binders, there are ribbons inside to separate each individual binder.  What is interesting about it is that the color code applies to it - colors with respect to the color code separating the wires so that no confusion will arise (or did I add to the confusion?).  Anyway, this is the definition of the different classifications of wires.

That was the foundation of understanding the various telephony cable sequences with respect to color code.  Practice using the terminology with a telco person who works out in the field and that person will be impressed.  As for understanding the various networking protocols, packet switching, TCP/IP, to name a few, they rarely understand it (not to castigate their intelligence).  This is from my social engineering with others in the field.

In contrast, the telcos provide us with services that are vital to the connections to the communications terminals so that we can have our Internet and telephone connections.

As a techno-dweeb dilettante, the telco realm was different compared to the computer/electronics realm; two completely different entities.  I rarely use the color code, but it's good to share the knowledge with others not familiar with it.  When the two are integrated there is an appreciation for the cabling, terminals, and connections making it possible for communication lines to be in existence.  Yet, it's fascinating to ponder how a copper wire with plastic wrapped around it in various colors is vital to the communications that we are using today and for tomorrow.