Bringing in the broadband

Category 6 structured cabling is taking local area network performance to a new level with vastly superior speed

Data traffic has continued to explode over the past few years, typically doubling every 18 months. And while so much focus has been on increasing available bandwidth in the wide area or public network environment it is equally important to ensure that high bandwidth is available within enterprises, across their local area networks.

Enterprises are now looking at introducing even more data-rich applications, such as video streaming and back-up resources, such as storage area networks. This means that more and more bandwidth is needed to support greater volumes of increasingly complex and sophisticated data traffic. Some current applications are already running at approximately 1Gb/s (one Gigabit per second) and it is generally agreed that while Category 5E is able to cope with this throughput, it has been pushed to the limit.

Vital role

Structured cabling - the cabling that delivers voice and data services within a building - is as important to delivering the future of high bandwidth applications as broadband networks. Structured cabling will play a key role in bringing faster, higher quality services to the market, including video streaming, networked CTTV and data storage.

Category 6 is set to be a catalyst for the next generation of enterprise applications, by providing the efficient throughput and handling that is required. Category 6 structured cabling takes LAN performance to a new level and is ideal for higher bandwidth requirements, such as Gigabit Ethernet.

Category 6 provides more than double the bandwidth of Category 5E and also introduces improved transmission performance. The rated frequency range is 1-200MHz, but the performance is specified to 250MHz. A combination of hardware and cabling features combine to provide less attenuation, better high frequency balance and significant improvement in system return loss.

The greater bandwidth provided by Category 6 will be able to support higher bandwidth applications of more than one Gigabit per second. Applications of this kind are expected to grow dramatically over the next few years, particularly in environments including the financial sector, hospitals, media and publishing and the security industry. These are all environments where there is a growing need to support large amounts of networked data and real-time applications such as high quality video. In theory, Category 6 could also have benefits in smaller business environments and even in the residential market. While Category 6 has been talked about for some time, it has only recently been ratified as an agreed and published standard. To ensure guaranteed performance, companies should only choose hardware that has been independently tested and accredited with conformity to the Category 6 standard.

The Category 6 standard embraces all the main components in a structured cabling environment, including twisted-pair copper cabling, connectors, patch cords, channels and permanent links, plus a variety of testing procedures. Currently, the standard is intended to work for all lengths of cabling up to 100 metres.

There is still a role for category 5E to play and for a while, the two standards will exist, although ultimately, Category 6 will account for most installations. Category 6 is also backwards compatible with 5E and applications that work over Cat 5E will work over Category 6. However, organisations looking at higher speed applications should seriously consider Category 6 structured copper cabling.

3M Telecommunications has an extensive range of structured cabling solutions to meet local area networking requirements, across voice, data and other applications, including data storage and CCTV. Under the brand name Volition, the range covers fibre optic and copper cabling, including solutions with Category 5e and Category 6 compliance.

The Volition range comprises horizontal and vertical cabling, patch cords, patch panels, outlets, sockets, termination kits, managed switches, network interface cards and media converters. Products and services designed to support the Volition range include fibre interconnect solutions and extensive range of pre-terminated cable assemblies.

At the heart of any structured cabling system is the interconnection technology. 3M provides two innovations: a tool-less RJ45 for copper (K5e and K6); and for fibre, the VF-45 duplex connector, which can be terminated in under two minutes.

3M

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