What is Structured Cabling?

Building or campus telecommunications cabling infrastructure features many standardized, smaller components (collectively called subsystems).

It Falls Into Six Subunits:

• The demarcation point is where the telephone network ends and connects to the in- house wiring at the customer premises.
• An equipment or telecommunications room consolidates the wiring and other supplies of residential users on the inside of business or campus buildings.
• Cabling connects the telecommunications rooms, known as a riser because the rooms typically are on different floors.
• In the horizontal wiring method, capacity can be based on the foot level, or cable can beattached directly to the points of individual employees or telephone rooms.
• Workstations of the horizontal cabling system connect to cable outlets through work-area components.

Installing and maintaining telecommunications centers, offices, and residential complexes for voice and data communications are governed by standards that specify diameters, core counts and mounting positions of cable classes in types Cat 5e, 6, 7 and fiber optics cabling modular connectors. These standards dictate how to configure the cabling in various topologies to fit the consumer’s requirements, typically employing a 19-inch rack-mounted central patch panel, where each modular connection can be utilized as needed.

Wires laid as data ports to a line card connector require simple straight-through cables at both ends for connection to a computer. Voice patches to PBXs in most countries involve an adapter at the other end of the wire to simplify its configuration on 8P8C modular connectors into the local standard telephone wall socket. No adapter is required in the United States, as the 6P2C and 6P4C plugs commonly used with RJ11 and RJ14 telephone connections are physically and electrically compatible with the larger 8P8C socket. RJ25 and RJ61 connections are physically but not electrically compatible and cannot be used. Adapters are essential for the 6-pin B.T. socket at the remote end of a socket in the United Kingdom. The 8P8C plug does not work with it because the pins aren’t physically compatible.

When planning structured cabling, it is common to refer to the patch panel cable’s color to identify the cable connection type. Structured cabling does not meet this code in the demarcation segment.

The cabling standards demand that each of the eight Cat 5 conductors in the 6-category cable is maintained to avoid the practice of “doubling up” or using a single line for both voice and data. However, I.P. telephone systems can run the telephone and the P.C. on the same single cable.

#Structured Cabling Standards

International standards are published by IEC, CENELEC, and the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA), and the U.S. Communications Services Alliance has also widely accepted the standards. Building Industry Consulting Services International is a globally renowned independent trainer of structured cabling technicians with different design and development manuals. It additionally plays an essential function in conjunction with businesspeople and industry authorities in developing and designing architectural standards in the United States.

– ANSI/TIA-568-C.0, Generic Telecommunications Cabling for Customer Premises, 2009

– ANSI/TIA-568-C.1, Commercial Building Telecommunications Cabling Standard, 2009

– ANSI/TIA-568-C.2, Balanced Twisted-Pair Telecommunication Cabling and Components Standard published 2009

– ANSI/TIA-568-C.3, Optical Fiber Cabling Components Standard, published 2008, plus errata issued in October 2008.

– TIA-569-B (2004; AMD 1 2009) Commercial Building Standard for Telecommunications Pathways and Spaces

– ANSI/TIA/EIA-606-A-2002, Administration Standard for Commercial Telecommunications Infrastructure.

Some countries implement these standards, mainly crucial in the E.U. are the CENELEC document EN50173, which exposes the related links to the whole set of CENELEC documents meanwhile, ISO11801 serves as the lead of the ISO documentation.