Being tethered to a desk, cubicle, or conference room is just no fun, and with the advent of wireless networks, no one has to be “siloed” anymore.    The newest 802.11n specifications also provide for greater range and security than ever before, so the old worries about hackers discovering vital data from the airwaves are not as prominent.

What IS a concern with wireless networking is coverage, and access point handoff for mobile devices.  With any wireless network, you will have some dead spots in a building. Rather than getting upset about it, simply plan for it.   Walk through your offices with test equipment from a reputable firm like Air Magnet, locate the dead spots, and make sure that tethered 10/100 Fast Ethernet connections are available in those areas.

A thorough magnetic review of your office space will also help you plan where to place access points, or areas where signals are received and rebroadcast.  It is best to purchase newer access points if you have employees who “roam” – like technicians, warehouse workers, or forklift operators.  Newer access points have longer ranges and can handoff the signal more quickly to a new access point once your employee travels outside the best range for the first access point.   Otherwise, the signal drops and an interruption in service is seen.  Advances in predictive technology, similar to that used in read channels for disc drives is applied in newer WiFi equipment.

802.11 as a standard also provides for something called “antenna diversity” – which simply means that several antennas are used and the signal picked up from the best placed one.  If you are WiFi-enabling mobile objects such as hospital beds, you have no way of predicting proper antenna placement.  Having more than one increases the probability that one of the antennas will have a clear, strong signal.  It’s like buying more than one lottery ticket, your odds of winning increase.

Make sure your antennas are placed in locations where they have no nearby EMI sources such as other wiring.  Place them correctly so the signal can rise above any metal shielding or other obstacles.

It goes without saying that a solid wired foundation is necessary before building a strong wireless network.   Your service provider should be good to his “SLA” or “service-level-agreement” and you should have at least cat 5e cabling connecting your WAN service to the wireless router and access points you have installed.  If you need to upgrade your internal wiring or would like expert help in planning your wireless network installation, call professional data installation experts for assistance.  The right professionals are more than willing to help plan, design, implement or upgrade a wonderful 802.11x network for your company.

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Innovation marches on, and wire and cable technology is yet another area where the “latest and greatest” can be found on Google via a simple search.  The newest type of Ethernet cable is cat 7, or category 7 cabling.

Cat 7 cable was designed to handle 10 Gigabit Ethernet traffic over 100 m of copper cabling.  As such, it has much stricter standards for crosstalk and systems noise that cat 5e or cat 6.   It contains four twisted wire copper pairs just like cat 5e and cat 6 cabling, but each pair is individually shielded to achieve these standards.

It is important to note that no cat 7 cable types are officially “approved” at this time, so if having the blessing of a standards body is important to you or your business, it is best to stick with “tried and true” cat 5e cabling unless you have very large files you need to transfer very quickly.

Also, cat 7 cabling is designed for 10G traffic which most small and medium businesses don’t necessary need now.  This doesn’t mean that the evolution of the Internet won’t change this in the future, but the good news is that cat 7 is compatible with cat 5e and cat 6.  All three types of cabling can coexist in the same network, which means you can upgrade the sections of your network that require it in the future while leaving your older cat 5e and cat 6 cable in place.

But if you, like Robert Bosch corporation, want your network to still be current 18 years in the future – then cat 7 cabling may be worth it for you.   Robert Bosch also opted for TERA connectors instead of RJ-45 to extend the overall capabilities and frequency range of this “state-of-the-art” infrastructure.

Whatever your cabling or infrastructure needs, network cabling installers are there to help!  The professionals will take an in-depth look at your business model and make well-considered recommendations for your current and future needs.   Call professional network cabling installers today to start moving your network in the right direction!

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In the dark ages, the Internet was nothing more than a toy or a hobby for those who liked to live on the “cutting-edge” of technology.  Slowly, it morphed into an individual tool for employees to use when doing extensive research on a particular topic, then it became a tool for those looking for art or photographs.  The first wave of Internet business tools provided new ways for companies to promote, position, and advertise their goods and services.

Innovations followed swiftly – and the Internet morphed from a one-to-one tool to a one-to-many tool, and ultimately to a many-to-many tool with the advent of social networks such as Linked-in and Facebook.

What’s next?  The latest buzz is all about the upcoming Internet migration from being a tool that is used mostly by people, to one that extends its reach to objects.   Can’t visualize your company’s inventory interacting with the Internet?  Read on…

RFID tagging – where small radio frequency transmitters are placed on containers of materials, piece parts, etc will drive one of the first waves of “things” interacting with the Internet.   Small radio waves will be sent from every container, box, or even individual component that will correlate with serial numbers, date codes, or any other piece of data you want to track.  Boxes in a storage facility can be tracked to exact location with the combination of RFID tracking and GPS technology.  Delivery vehicles can be tracked, and all individual shipping containers per delivery vehicle can also be tracked.   And this technology extends far beyond simple package and inventory tracking!  It can be used to track retail products purchased by individuals (imagine how useful it would be to have your cereal box announce that it is no longer fresh once past its use date), auto parts installed in your car, medical equipment used, and even articles of clothing.

Another wave of this movement will happen as the “Smart Grid” replaces the antiquated world power delivery systems.   This will use the Internet as a communications platform between your home and power distribution stations – saving you money, saving power, and allowing selective shut down of some less critical appliances and outlets in the advent of a brown-out or overload.  No more blown transformers or complete black-outs!

Home Appliances can become “smart” as things increasingly begin to interact with the Internet.   Your refrigerator can IM you to let you know you are about to run out of eggs, or that the milk has gone bad (based on days of storage).   You can tap a few keys on your computer before leaving work, and come home to a warm hot tub and soft music to unwind from your day.

Your business – small or large – as well as your home needs to be equipped to take advantage of these new trends.  This means having a solid networking backbone based on either a cat 5e or cat6 cable scheme, and a well-designed data storage and delivery system.   It also may mean consulting with professionals, like structured cabling installers, in order to plan for both current, and future needs for your “smart” home and business.

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Is your network ready for the future?  You may think you have all the infrastructure you need for now, but in our fast paced world, you either keep up or get left behind. And why is being left behind such a bad thing?

Because innovation is creating productivity enhancements at lightning speed.  Before you can say “TCP/IP” , the business world will have evolved into a environment where workers are highly productive from anywhere – not just their offices.   And offices offer productivity enhancing innovations like telepresence (which means no more down time in airports, train stations, etc), collaboration, company-wide internal social networks, and easily searchable databases containing knowledge applicable to every facet of an employee’s job.

What will the future hold?  The sky is the limit.   Already being discussed are innovations like holographic telepresence – where not only do you have a conference with someone remote, you have the total illusion that they are in the same room with you.   The need for “face time” is met in a sales situation without the incredible expenses and downtime associated with travel.

Database sizes will increase, and employees will be able to search from any kind of input – an idea, a song, a graphic, or a topic.   Much of this knowledge will reside in “the cloud” (a new term or “buzzword” for applications or information resident on servers located offsite), meaning the demand for robust, secure data centers will increase rapidly.  Larger companies will build their own data centers, but small and medium sized data centers will rely on outsourced data centers to have the security and reliability they need to run their businesses efficiently.  It goes without saying that the small and medium businesses will have to have both a high speed WAN connection AND a rock solid internal infrastructure to support remote large file downloads from such data centers.

IM clients where employee’s can simply transfer files back and forth are already a reality. Who wants to wait for long email downloads?  Besides, most email servers have a size limit installed, to prevent the transmission of harmful files.   Instant file transfer cuts down on printing and printing costs, but it takes bandwidth and a solid infrastructure.

“Future-proofing” your network so you are poised to take advantage of innovation as it happens will allow you to reap the benefits of enhanced productivity and lowered costs.  This means having a solid network infrastructure based on at least a cat 5e or cat 6 cable architecture.

If you don’t want to be left out in the cold, call the right structured wiring installers for a comprehensive network assessment and cost effective quotation.  The right professionals will assess your unique needs, and make sure that a solution is planned, designed, and delivered that will help you take advantage of the coming changes.

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The standardly used wiring for both home and company networks is twisted pair – twisting the wires cancels out electromagnetic interference effects and improves SNR or signal-to-noise ratio.  Because cat 5, cat5e and cat6 wiring are all twisted pair wiring types, there are special handling requirements that apply.

First of all, try not to twist the cable as you install it.  This can cause fragile internal wiring to split or break, and can degrade the insulation.  When running twisted pair cabling, try to use gentle curves rather than sharp angles which can degrade performance.  It also makes sense when using UTP (unshielded twisted pair) cabling to install wires a safe distance away from any other wiring, and especially from fluorescent lighting.

To maximize performance and minimize latency, use as short of a cable run as you possibly can get away with using.  In any event, never use more than 100 meters of cabling.   Pulling two wires per “drop” (room, or area needing a connection) provides redundancy, which means you have a spare should one of the wires become degraded.   Using two boxes of wiring makes this easier to do.  Position your patch panel or hub in a central location such that each wire run is minimized.

If you nick a cable – don’t just let it go and think it will be OK. It won’t be over time.  Degradation in performance is easy to achieve at Fast Ethernet or Gigabit Ethernet speeds.  Discard or recycle this cable and pull a new one, to be safe.  If you start with the longest runs first, if you nick a long wire, you can cut some of it off and still have enough for a shorter run.

It goes without saying that labeling each wire as soon as you pull it makes it easier to remember where it goes!  Use colored tape, and mark the same colors on the RJ45 sockets you place the wire terminations into.   Try to minimize the untwisting you do at the ends and connections when terminating the wires.   Test the wiring with a high quality tester – lower quality testers do not detect “split pairs” or stress test wiring at high bit rates.

Pulling low voltage twisted pair cabling does take time and practice – if the infrastructure you are considering pulling is mission critical, it makes sense to leave it to professionals.   Call experienced network cabling installers a cost-effective, thorough and professional job that you can count on for future as well as current infrastructure needs.

If you liked this article, tell all your friends about it. They’ll thank you for it. If you have a blog or website, you can link to it or even post it to your own site (don’t forget to mention our Network Cabling website as the original source).