<title>Transmission of FDDI signals over low-frequency media</title>

Abstract

The `FDDI' designation is gaining an increasing place in the local area network (LAN) jargon along with the `Ethernet' and `Token Ring.' The four letters stand for fiber-optic distributed data interface, but as in the case of other LANs the meaning of the name looses its importance as the properties of the network become familiar to the community of the users, implementors, and designers. Further, more new properties are added to the original set, sometimes beyond the boundaries hinted by the name. This paper presents the actual stage of an attempt to change the `F' (fiber-optic) to `M' (metal) specifically to unshielded twisted pair (UTP). The sense in doing so is the fact that a huge installed basis of metallic wires for telephone and data transmission already exists, and reaches an immense number of desktops. This paper describes: (1) An hierarchical network architecture emphasizing the segment to be implemented over UTP. (2) A systemic approach to the definition of the parameters for the physical medium dependent (PMD) module that should interface the MDDI (FDDI over metallic media) to the UTP cable plant. (3) Measurement results available at the time of the presentation.