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.

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Wireless networks are fashionable for small businesses, and it is no wonder.  Having a good wireless network allows employees to work anywhere in the building without being tethered to their offices.   Customers and visitors can work in conference rooms, after being given guest access to the network.  And costly wire drops become unnecessary.

However, there are key tradeoffs to be considered – and more and more companies are opting for both a wired and a wireless network so that the benefits of both can be combined.

Wireless networks are subject to “dead” spots within any building. Although this can be minimized by careful placement of access points and the use of analysis tools such as those available from Air Magnet, dead spots are unavoidable in most structures.  The fastest bandwidth available with any wireless networking protocol today is 55 Mbps, as opposed to 100 Mbps for fast Ethernet wired networks (with Gigabit Ethernet networks offering up to 1,000 Mbps speeds).  And they are notoriously easier to hack into, although newer security protocols such as WPA-2 are being used to address this concern.

Wired networks limit freedom, but are tougher to hack into and very reliable.  Many companies provide workers the choice between the two options – if they need to work in a conference room, a wireless network is available to enable this.  If they need speed and reliability, a cable drop is available to plug into their laptops or PCs.   Added security connections can be had by using wired fiber optic Ethernet drops instead of copper Ethernet drops.

VoIP is also deployed only with wired connections today – as call quality with VoIP over 802.11 is not yet considered solid.  Enterprise VoIP desktop phones from all major manufacturers require that a copper Cat5, Cat5E or Cat6 Ethernet cable be connected.  ATAs or “analog telephone adapters” also require a hard wired connection.

When considering what to deploy for your company, if you have the resources, both a wired and wireless network is optimum.  If you have a smaller company and only want one or the other, deploying VoIP or voice-over-IP is a great cost saving step and requires the installation of static wiring to work properly.  This means a structured cabling network is your best choice.  The monthly cost savings realized from eliminating long distance toll charges and high land line charges will more than pay for the added expense of installing copper cabling over a short amount of time.

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If your building infrastructure was put together during the 90s or later, chances are that you have some form of Cat 5 UTP cabling installed. Cat 5 UTP cable was designed to support the demands of an ATM, CDDI, or Fast Ethernet (100 Base TX) data networking system and represented a significant upgrade over the Cat 3 cable found in buildings designed for 10 Base TX systems installed in the 80s.

Cat 5e cabling was introduced a bit later and is fundamentally the same as Cat 5, but has a few additional items specified.   A chart showing the differences between all three common types of copper cabling is shown below:

CAT5, CAT5e, and CAT6 UTP Solid Cable Specifications Comparison

Chart from http://discountcablesusa.com/ethernet-cables100.html

Delay skew is a measure of the difference between the signal delay along the fastest pair of conductors and along the slowest pair of conductors, and is a measure of the uniformity of signal transmission along the cable.  Cat 5e cable and Cat 6 cable have the same specification, which is a max of 45 nS.

NEXT and PS-NEXT are specifications for cross talk, and near end cross talk, respectively.   Cat 6 cable has more stringent specifications for these parameters, and also is rated to support bandwidths of up to 250 MHz.   Cross talk, which is the bleeding of signals from one pair to another through induction, is highly undesirable and cause slower signal speeds as well as signal degradation.

When choosing which type cable to use for your implementation, it is important to note that cat 5e is probably fine for most small businesses running Fast Ethernet. Much of the cat 5 cable available today is also really cat 5e cable that simply hasn’t been tested to the new rigorous specifications.  Cat 6 is a good choice for 1) mission critical areas such as a data center, or key on-site servers, 2) networks you want to upgrade to Gigabit Ethernet, or 3) networks you want to “future-proof” so that new standards and speeds can be easily accommodated.

A new category of cabling, Cat 6a, is being introduced to support 10 Gigabit Ethernet networks as well. It will operate up to frequencies of 500 MHz.  Some Cat 6 cable can also support 10 Gigabit networks if properly installed, but only over shorter structured cable lengths due to losses.

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 http://www.intsysinst.com as the original source).