How to Centre Data Cabling Installation around Your Business’ Needs

Why does this approach fail for modern business networks? There are three major issues with it:

• The techniques and standards used for data cabling are quite different from those used for electrical wiring.
• The complexity, diversity and size of modern networks make it hard for data cabling that was deployed as an afterthought to electrical wiring to support your business’s operations.
• A network that can barely support current devices is unlikely to be able to cope with tomorrow’s demands – a vital threat to the well-being of any business.

Even though cabling is the least expensive component of a modern network, it is the physical foundation on which the network rests, and – like any foundation – it needs to be not only solid but also adequate for the type of load that it supports.

Regulatory problems. Wiring regulations and standards, both for electrical and data wiring, are extremely complex and cover a great surface of issues, ranging from fire safety to electrical and optical signal integrity. Some of these issues, like avoiding tripping hazards, are common, but most of them are not. Some installation requirements and techniques are similar, but many (such as patching and terminating) differ significantly.

Treating one category of cabling as auxiliary to another often involves sacrificing some compliance. Since failure to adhere to electrical codes is usually more visible (and potentially more dangerous), many companies choose to sacrifice compliance with telecom and networking standards.

With some exceptions (mainly concerning H&S and private data protection), failure to adhere to data cabling standards will rarely result in legal trouble, but it does ultimately boil down to simply having a lower-quality network, with chronic performance issues that are difficult to troubleshoot. Link issues, insufficient or inadequate plugs, signal quality problems are common symptoms of improper data cabling installation, and their occurrence is difficult to predict.

Unfortunately, these problems surface only as the office equipment is being deployed and starts being regularly used. Some of them creep in slowly – badly installed cable sections, for instance, can work for a while before rapidly deteriorating.

Not only are these problems difficult to troubleshoot, but they are often dealt with using ad-hoc patches: you install additional switches in offices that have too few sockets, run cables to the sockets at the other end of the room to avoid the bad ones and so on. This results in mounting costs, trailing cables, and lengthy, costly troubleshooting.

There is simply no way to do that without an RF survey and without prior knowledge of how your network is laid out. A best-guess approach, with access points installed wherever it was most convenient, or wherever the electrical cabling company happened to run data cables, results in poor Wi-Fi performance and non-uniform, inconvenient coverage. In our experience, this is the leading cause of the proverbial inconvenient Wi-Fi network, which barely has any signal and grinds to a halt in office areas, where everyone needs it, but runs great in the cafeteria and around the reception.

Modern office networks also require high speeds more uniformly than a few years ago: high-definition content for training videos, business calls and even the occasional YouTube video place higher strain throughout the network, not only on the backbone and server-room network.

Coping with these demands requires significant planning effort, because high-speed network performance depends on a great deal of parameters, such as cable type, length and even bend radius or proximity to electrical cables. More importantly, however, it requires specific installation techniques and, more often than not, special installation equipment.

Most electrical wiring companies only aim to offer basic data network installation services. Their target customers are businesses with basic networking demands that are unlikely to grow, such as those outlined in the beginning of this section. It makes sense for these companies to treat data cabling as an inconsequential expense that needs to be minimized, but this does not work for everyone.

Expansion and Emerging Technologies. These are, perhaps, the two most difficult points to deal with. Data cabling installation needs to reconcile two difficult demands: minimizing expenses, which requires using as little cabling and equipment as possible and the best price/capabilities ratio for current use, and dealing with long-term network growth, which requires spare equipment and cabling, and the most future-proof set of capabilities.

Meeting medium- and long-term expansion demands require, at a minimum, an awareness regarding these demands. Consequently, it can only be achieved if the long-term requirements of your business, your development plans for that particular office and the way they fit in your long-term vision are taken into account as early as the planning stage of the network.

A network that slows down or requires a great deal of maintenance as it grows may seem like little more than a nuisance, but with so much of modern business being conducted digitally, a lack of scalability in your company network directly translates to a lack of business scalability.

The risk is even greater when you begin to factor in emergent technologies. A recent Gartner report, for instance, recognizes that IoT “presents a myriad of opportunities for leading organizations to address their business issues”, and the same organisation predicts that business users will account for more than 7 billion deployments of IoT devices.

Furthermore, modern networks are not comprised solely of office computers. They integrate security and access control systems, building management endpoints and many other types of devices.

This radical growth in device numbers and diversity will be one of the leading causes of business data network growth, and you need to be prepared for it.