How to Improve Performance using Smart Office Cabling

Regarding engineering operations, the installation and installation of data cables are among the most critical and yet the least visible in terms of network design and deployment. However, when we think about network planning and implementation we tend to focus on equipment racks, workstations, routers, and switches, rather than the cables that connect them. While office cabling may be a necessary evil, it’s amusing that it’s so often overlooked.

Cable planning is often portrayed as passive, but this could not be further from the truth. For example, the rapid move to virtualization has driven – and been supported by – a radical review of cabling strategy and guidelines. This is not the case. Servers, switching equipment, and connectivity – i.e., cables – all had to deal with the additional data load that was generated as a result of this. Despite the so-called “wireless era,” office cabling is still an important aspect of construction planning and even building planning. Our modern enterprises cannot afford to be slow. Any industry, not just technology, benefits from increased speed.

Businesses on both sides of the proactive/reactive divide had an advantage over those who had to revamp their cable infrastructure because they could scale their cabling infrastructure quickly enough. Because of their rising importance in today’s business environment, wired networks are taking on an increasingly important role in the workplace now and in the future. Downtime expenditures have risen by more than 30% since 2010, and more than 75% of those costs can be attributed to a decrease in productivity among employees. When it comes to a company’s productivity, the data backbone – the data cabling – is the first layer of its foundation: an effective, high-performance, low-maintenance network.

There is more to office cabling than just laying wires.

Many of the fundamental components of office cabling have been defined by international regulatory authorities for a long time, discovering its importance in modern businesses a long-standing one. For more than a decade, the IEC has standardised general cabling requirements in IEC 11801, and other standards address specific issues such as commercial building telecommunications infrastructure, optical communication infrastructure, and even how commercial telecommunication structures are administered. A paradigm known as structured cabling is described by these standards, which breaks down the cabling infrastructure into standardised smaller components.

Because of this, the installation and configuration of office cabling are not left to the whims of the planner. For commercial deployments, standards set down minimum requirements with the goal of standardisation and providing quality assurance. Industry standards ensure that an installation built to these standards can support any higher-level networking equipment that is also built to these standards, from CCTV cameras and servers to VoIP telephones to routers, that trained technicians can find their way through the network and the network provides a solid foundation for any higher-level certification requirements such as data security certifications and standards.

Other than those three factors, the other half of the data cable deployment process is largely determined by customer needs, locational characteristics, and long-term corporate goals. Businesses’ bandwidth requirements have changed dramatically as a result of the migration to cloud and hybrid apps, and Microsoft is now offering tools to help businesses estimate their bandwidth needs.

Just five years ago, the concept of shifting a whole company’s Office productivity software to the cloud was unheard of.

Cabling and Efficiency in the Office: Risk and Optimisation

Users rarely notice cabling when it’s working properly, but they can immediately tell when it isn’t. This is true of many other infrastructure components, too. Effective office cabling eliminates one of the most obvious threats to productivity: a lack of communication.

Losing connectivity due to faulty cable has an immediate impact, but this can be prolonged if the installation is poorly planned or executed. Intervention costs and downtime can skyrocket if a cable is difficult to reach or does not follow colour coding that makes it easy to identify. This creates a vicious cycle: IT and management avoid maintenance tasks because they are time-consuming and expensive, which in turn increases the fault rate and lowers productivity.

As a result of inefficient routing and planning, network infrastructure equipment can suffer from performance issues and lower ROI. The maximum length of a Cat 6 cable for 10 Gigabit Ethernet cable installation (10GBASE-T) is 55 metres according to the ISO/IEC 11801 standard, although the same type of cable can transmit 1 Gigabit Ethernet (1000BASE-T) signals beyond a length of 100 metres (90 metres of running cables, plus 5 metres of stranded cable at each end). There will be poor network performance (if any network performance at all) if the equipment is connected through wires that exceed specified lengths, and changing to 10GBASE-T equipment will have little impact in an incorrectly constructed network.

An office network's reliability can be greatly affected by the quality of the installation job itself. At some point in a network’s lifecycle and defect rate, even seemingly inconsequential elements, like how much a cable is bent, might add up. Cables mounted horizontally must bend at least four times their outside diameter, according to ISO/IEC 11801. If a cable is bent beyond this point (or if it is installed with cables that do not meet this standard), the network’s performance may suffer or connectivity may be lost.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, well-planned office wiring maximises the efficiency of any investment in network equipment and workstations. The installation and material expenses of properly structured cabling are reduced, allowing you to put your money to better use elsewhere in your company and saving you money over the long term.

A network’s infrastructure is made up of a variety of components, but cables are the most durable. To put it another way: There’s no motivation to make permanent changes to the network’s infrastructure, and the installation can be obtrusive because wires must be routed through walls, floors, and ceilings. If you want to avoid a significant revamp, it’s best to get it properly the first time around and avoid the headaches that come with it.

To put it another way, office cabling is a long-term investment. If you get it right from the start, you’ll be able to devote all of your time and energy to your primary business.

Sustaining Long-Term Growth

A modern business’s long-term success is also dependent on proper cable planning. This is especially true for organisations in the technology sector, whose needs are growing at a rapid pace.

Growth in connectivity demands is generally driven by physical expansion; as a company grows, its network infrastructure must be able to accommodate new equipment and subsequently connect several offices. For more than a decade, multinational corporations have been linking offices on opposite sides of the globe.

As a result, the demands on office networks are no longer limited to simply increasing the number of computers in the workplace. From LED lighting and HVAC equipment to more complex physical security systems, a Gartner report anticipates a dramatic increase in the number of IoT devices used by organisations. By 2020, enterprises are estimated to spend over $500 million on IoT hardware and services for their workplaces, according to current estimates. Structured cabling facilitates endpoint growth, both in terms of number and diversity, but each company’s development plans and growth scenarios will dictate different planning and implementation strategies. Integrating these new devices will bring its own set of challenges, with a variety of wired and wireless connection protocols and specific access security requirements;

That said, this is by no means cause for alarm. This development is something that we can prepare for, especially since it won’t happen in one fell swoop. The scalability of an office network and correct office wiring are at the heart of seamless IoT integration.

In the coming years, the design of office networks is projected to undergo even more radical changes. Before BYOD caused big rifts in office network design, firms were pushing their employees to use their computing and communication equipment to help them be more mobile and productive at work.

Gartner forecasted three years ago that, by 2018, more than 40% of organisations will designate Wi-Fi as the default connection for non-mobile devices, including desk phones and projectors. Although a wireless access point on the ceiling was unusual seven years ago, today wireless access points sit in virtually every other room, as well as the old wired infrastructure.

Other factors have influenced office cabling demands and deployment. The term “data as the oil of the twenty-first century” refers to the increasing amount of sensitive personal data held by businesses. Physical and network access to data is protected by the Data Protection Act in the UK. The use of air-gapped networks for key activities, and network infrastructure segmentation for BYOD are increasingly required.

Conclusion

Network infrastructure is one of a company’s most significant assets in today’s data-driven, fast-paced commercial world. An unusually low-cost, yet tough to troubleshoot and overhaul, and long-lived aspect of the company’s network infrastructure, office cabling is the company’s first element of foundation.