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computers talking out of the building
How are computers getting out the building to servers or a data center. What is the piece of hardware that is allowing them to get out the building? Is it a router or some type of switch? I’ve heard that you have layer 3 switches. I’ve been in a couple of comm rooms but at the time I didn’t know what to look for. All I’ve seen is the patch panels along with switches, router, and I believe some modems. What would I look for? Some type of cable connected to a wan port on a device.
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Reply To: computers talking out of the building
That’s a modem. It converts the signal on the internal network to a signal that’s on the outside network. The signal can be dial-up (rather old fashioned), ADSL, cable, glass fiber, satellite), all different. That’s a different technology and your PC doesn’t have a driver for it, nor a slot to plug the cable in. That’s why you need a modem (a dial-up modem, an ADSL-modem, a cable modem, a glass fiber modem or a satellite modem) to “translate” it to your network protocol over an RJ-45 connection. You wouldn’t like to use a cable to connect your PC to one of Elon Musks Starlinks satellites, would you?
It’s comparable to a media box converting the TV-signal sent over the cable to HDMI understood by the TV or monitor, but for data not for images and sound.
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