Unclear on the concept, special networking edition

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IT pilot fish is called in to referee a disagreement between a friend who's pulling network cable at a new corporate site and the local IT manager.

"The IT manager claimed that substandard installation work was slowing his network," says fish. "I spent some time wandering around and checking outlets and the setup, plus running a few tests."

It turns out the cabling is fine, it's all up to Cat-5 spec, and the workmanship is good. But fish is concerned that the network hubs are only 10 Mbps -- the low end of what Cat 5 supports -- and the wide-area network connection is a puny 9.6K leased line to an office in another city.

Then fish sits down with the office manager, the IT manager and the foreman of the cabling crew. The IT manager is demanding that the cabling guys rip out the Cat-5 cable and replace it with Cat 6, which has just come out.

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