Somewhere in the Patch, a group of eight cyber-enhanced cat's occupied their Den. One by one they noticed a slight problem.
I called the Internet Service Provider and they told me to check the router! Can you believe this?
After the useless phone calls, Cat7 had a theory.
Good thing my shielded TERA connectors are protecting me from your outage. I will leave the problem up to you buddy.
You are no help Seven. I am going to call the ISP again!
ISP call #2.
Neither call made any headway.
The ISP says the connection is operating at full capacity.
Hey Cats, this is one of the Den's WiFi Access Points. Let's unplug it so we can test the cable end.
A WiFi Access Point is a specialized antenna powered by POE — Power over Ethernet. Cat6 unplugged it so the team could attach the cable tester directly to the cable end. They needed to make sure the cable was working properly and hadn't suddenly been damaged.
Some of the Baycats got to work and others well, tried.
I will be over here reading if you need me!
Is the WiFi down? I was about to stream something.
Baycat8 was in the network closet lounging between the cool fans.
Meanwhile...
Hey 5e — how's the testing looking?
So far so good — eight pins check out; all 4 pairs.
CAT5e and CAT6 are the most common type of copper cabling used in local area networks (LANs) and telephone systems. 8 individual wires are grouped into 4 color-coded pairs. These wires are twisted at specific, precise rates to prevent signals from bleeding between pairs and to protect against external electrical noise. But the more cables, the trickier it becomes to manage. A large number of cables can easily turn into a tangled mess.
Cat6 looks at the switch on the floor. The LEDs were not blinking.
Hey Cats, Fivey and I found the problem! The main network switch was unplugged. Does anyone know about this?
It was you wasn't it Five. You tripped on the cables didn't you.
Before Cat5 was able to come up with a witty reply, Cat7 jumps in to the banter.
Looks like 5 is only connected with 2-pairs today. Are your other pairs crossed 5?
Cat7 uncrosses his arms while laughing hysterically to his own joke about RJ45 ethernet cable connectors.
Cat7 cable shielding is designed to prevent Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) and crosstalk in environments with heavy electrical noise. Is the Den an environment with extraordinarily high EMI or is there something else at play?
Seems odd that internet connectivity is stable for Cat7?
Determined to find more clues, Cat6e went to the server rack alone. Cat8 was just leaving after a nice rest.
Hey 8, how are you managing the heat?
Oh, pretty well. I found a new spot between the server fans. It feels like cool mountain air. It was a little loud though... I need some more, well, sleep.
Cat6e traced the cables from each network in the Den. Cat7's network cable looked different from the rest. It didn't go to the same network switch either. Instead the CAT7 cable went to a TERA labelled switch that was squeezed into the bottom of the rack.
With the whole Den online again... Baycat3 and Baycat5 found something to watch on their favorite streaming service. Baycat6A and Baycat7 were already deep into their video games. Baycat6 and Baycat5e worked together to clean up the old server rack and Cat6e was looking back at the camera feed. Why did Cat8 look so suspicious?