In cabling terms it is possible for the energy that is used to carry a signal travelling along one piece of cable to affect another nearby cable. This electromagnetic interference can have the side effect of causing parts of a signal being carried along one cable to cross over onto the other cable. This is known as cross talk and can result in unintended signal disruptions. This is particularly a problem for cables that run in parallel as the amount of interference builds as the distance increases.

In networking cables that require high-speed reliable performance, cross talk can be reduced by using twisted pairs of cables. The twists in the cables help reduce the amount of cross talk between the cables as the electronic magnetic interference, which is likely to be similar in a pair of twists, gets reflected back effectively cancelling out much of the interference.

 A common network cable is UTP (Unshielded Twisted Pair) and others include additional noise reduction methods such as STP (Shielded Twisted Pair) and the addition of a thin foil outer layer to make FTP (Foil Twisted Pair) and SFTP (Shielded Foil Twisted Pair).

This definition has been bought to you by: Jason Slater Weblog.