Definition of structured cabling - What it is, Meaning and Concept

It is known as structured cabling to the cable system, connectors , pipes and devices that allow establishing a Telecommunications infrastructure in a building.Installation and system features must meet certain standards to be part of the structured cabling condition.

In this way, the attachment of structured cabling to a standard allows This type of systems offers flexibility of installation and independence of suppliers and protocols, in addition to providing ample capacity for growth and being easy to manage.

In these cases, the routing is usually developed with twisted pair copper cable (for IEEE 802.3 type networks), although fiber optic cable can also be used or coaxial cable .

What allows structured cabling is to transport, within a building or enclosure, the signals that come from a transmitter to its corresponding receiver.therefore, of a physical network that can combine UTP cables , connection blocks and adapters, among other elements.

By supporting various telecommunications devices, structured cabling can be installed or modified without prior knowledge of the products that will be used on it.

At the time of laying, the extension of the wiring, the segmentation of the traffic, the possible occurrence of electromagnetic interference and the possible need to install virtual local networks must be taken into account.

Among the main elements of the structural cabling system are the horizontal cable (which runs horizontally between the floor and the ceiling), the vertical cable , trunk or backbone (which interconnects different rooms) and the telecommunications room (with telecommunications equipment).

Another of the concepts related to structured cabling is the grounding and bridging system; This is a fundamental component in a modern cabinet.The purpose of this resource is to divert any undue provision of electric current to the devices that are within the reach of users, which is caused by an error in the isolation of the active conductors.

It should be mentioned that the planes do not always indicate the existence of the grounding (also known as ground wire , well to ground or connection to ground , among other names it receives), and can be unique for circuits or branches that are in contact with trays, pass boxes or ducts.The installation of ground wires security is done underground.

On the other hand is capacitance, also called electrical capacity (the property of a body to conserve an electric charge), which can cause distortions in the signal that is transmitted by a cable.The capacitance increases the longer the cable and thinner insulation layer.To measure the capacitance you can use a cable tester, which can help determine if it has been stretched or folded.

Depending on the category of a network, its speed varies considerably; observing the seven between 1 and 6A, said value is: less than 512 kbit/s; 4 Mbit/s; 10 Mbit/s; 16 Mbit/s; 100 Mbit/s; 1 Gbit/s; 10 Gbit/s.Some of them have very specific uses, or known limits: 1 is used in telephone communications and its low speed does not make it suitable for transmitting data; 3 is used for 10BaseT networks (an ethernet configuration, a local network standard); 4 is for Token Ring networks (an architecture created by IBM).

It is worth mentioning that there are always portions of the transmission lines that are subject to background noise from the transmitter, the rest of the lines or from external sources.This noise, in turn, mixes with the signal and generates a slight distortion.