Structured Data Cabling

CAT5e / CAT6 / CAT6a / CAT7 / CAT 8

Structured Copper CAT5e CAT6 or CAT7 cabling

Code-Compliant and High-performing

BP Communications provide professional installation and testing by qualified engineers.

Cat 5e

Category 5e is a specification designed for data networks that support high speed data transmission, like Gigabit Ethernet, but keeping the signalling frequency to 100MHz. Category 5e has replaced the 100MB Category 5 as the baseline network. If a data rate of 1GB to the desktop covers the user’s foreseeable data needs, Category 5e is an adequate installation standard.

Cat 6

Category 6 is a specification for data cabling that supports 1GB data transmission at a frequency of 250MHz. This provides an excellent platform for Gigabit Ethernet with increased margins or “headroom” over Cat 5e, and also caters for future high speed data transmission protocols with even higher data rates.

Cat 6a/10G

Cat 6a has double the bandwidth of Cat 6 (500MHz) and far less interference, ideal for covering greater distances of up to 100 metres compared with a maximum of 55 metres for Cat 6.

Cat 7

Category 7 involves the use of double shielded rather than unshielded twisted pair copper cabling. It is considerably more costly but with 600MHz bandwidth it is an effective way to future-proof your network.

Cat 8

For utmost stability and speed, Cat 8 is the latest & fastest category of Ethernet standard – recommended for critical applications that require maximum headroom.

One of the key selling points of a structured cabling system is its ability to overcome the problems associated with ‘churn rate’ which is the average frequency that each person in an office moves location in a year, typically thought to be around 70%. For this reason, buildings are often ‘flood wired’, whereby more outlets than are initially required are installed, an ideal way of future proofing and allowing for expansion.

Structured (copper) cabling relies on patch panels to feed individual workstations, thus allowing for easy changes in configuration & distribution to be made. Rearrangements are therefore simply catered for at virtually no extra cost. Cabling is run through to each user position and back to a central comms area. At the user end, RJ45 outlets (similar in appearance to telephone outlets) can be presented in various ways.

Each outlet is allocated a unique ident number that will correspond with an outlet in the comms area. Fly leads can then be run from the outlet to the user device and then ‘patched’ from the comms area outlet to the network hub, telephone switch or other electronic equipment.

Communications networking structured cabling for phone voice over IP, telecoms, LAN networks

Wherever communications are needed, a cabling infrastructure is required to support it.

A Structured Cabling System solution provides all the communications cabling for an entire building in a unified and structured manner, allowing the flexibility for every user to connect to data (computer) and voice (telephone) services or even video (CCTV).

Engineers are City & Guilds qualified the professional installation and testing of Datacommunications (Copper) Cabling and Fibre Optic Cabling for Datacommunications & Telecommunications.

All equipment used during installation and maintenance contracts is fully serviced and has a valid Calibration Certificate where appropriate, thus making sure that all results are to an optimum standard.

Future Proof Data Cabling Installations

Like computer power and memory, the demand for data transmission capacity and speed has risen exponentially in recent years. Attempting to look ahead and determine with confidence the necessary bandwidth and data rate for the office of the future is becoming more difficult as the pace of changes increases.

The demise of copper in favour of high capacity fibre optic cable has been predicted before, but advanced versions of traditional unshielded twisted pair (UTP) copper cable have so far kept pace with today’s information technology. However, building a large network, linking a building to an external data highway or to other buildings, or linking horizontal networks on each floor of a building to a vertical data trunk will almost certainly involve fibre optic cables.

Structured cabling planning & future proofing network LAN installations

Telephone Systems / Voice Integration

Digital Telephony

Now affordable for organisations of any size, digital telephony frees you from the constraints of physical phone extensions so that employees can take their phone ‘extension’ with them anywhere in the office – or in the world.

VoIP Phone Systems

The great benefit of digital telephony is its ability to carry voice calls over your internet connection so that you can control the entire system from your browser.

For advice and further information, call our experts 02392 658212 or send us a message.