IT Cabling

Which structured cabling system is best for your network?

With so much choice available and with names and terms that can easily confuse all but the experts, making the right choice for your network can be a confusing and frustrating process. In this blog I’ll try to make things clearer, so you know the best network that suits you.

Copper 

For thousands of smaller existing LANs (Local Area Networks), there is unlikely to be the need for anything other than Category 5e (Class D), as it is cost effective and provides the speeds that these networks typically require (up to 1 gigabits a second). They are also the ideal choice for short term networks, such as  a short term lease.

If you are thinking of putting a new network in place, it is likely this will be a long term investment, if the speeds aren’t expected to be over the 1Gb/s level, then you can build in a ‘headroom’ or safety margin into your network, by using Category 6 instead.  It’s only a little more expensive, but is a safer long term choice.  There are also shielded and unshielded cables, however that would need a blog on its own to explain, suffice to say most installs will be OK with unshielded cable.

If however you are looking to use speeds up 10Gb/s, then Category 6A is almost certainly the best option, having been designed for 10 Gigabit Ethernet. The switches for 10Gb/s are now readily available and desktop PCs and Laptops are likely to have the technology soon, with Intel having released their ‘on-motherboard’ chipset this year. In fact, 6A is the minimum level to use for all date centres. Cat 7 is effectively obsolete and Cat 7A is unlikely to be able to run 40 

Gb/s.

Fibre

For speeds up to 10Gb/s, all fibre links consist of two fibres, whether you use singlemode or multimode fibres. However at speeds over this multimode requires eight fibres per link for 40 GB/s and 20 for 100Gb/s, whereas singlemode can carry up to 100Gb/s using only two fibres. Singlemode is in theory the best solution, especially if you are covering distance of 100m and above. It also covers speeds from 1Gb/s right through to 100Gb/s, so is great for future proofing, but the costs are more expensive than multimode.

If the singlemode is more than your current needs, then multimode may be the answer. Keep in mind however, that different connectors are needed depending on the speeds you require and this can be costly to change If you require faster speeds in the future, especially if going from 40Gb/s to 100Gb/s. Recently however there have been a few products launched, designed in mind to easily migrate your network from 10Gb/s to 40Gb/s and possibly 100Gb/s in the near future. If however you require the 100Gb/s speeds in the next two or three years, you are best to go for the singlemode or current 20 fibre multimode that is available now.

Which structure cabling to use, very much depends on your own circumstance. Hopefully this  blog gives a clearer picture of what is best for you and as the original articles says, there is no substitute for getting a highly knowledgeable consultant to help you make the best choice!

Thanks to the article from Network Communication News, written by Ken Hodge for the information provided here. If you are unsure on some of the terms used, please have a look at my previous blog http://www.it-cabling.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/a-laymans-guide-to-it-acronyms-and.html or get in touch.