星空传媒

In today鈥檚 competitive landscape, cabling contractors are forced to work to increasingly tight margins on projects where IT budgets are also being squeezed. The commercial pressure on installation teams to meet tight deadlines and budgets increases the opportunity for mistakes and raises the temptation to cut corners during installation. This pressure is confounded by the latest cabling technologies, particularly Category 6, which has made cable termination much more labour-intensive and complicated.

Given these constraints, cabling contractors need to reassess how they can install cabling networks to budget 鈥� yet without compromising quality. One solution is to transfer activities previously conducted during the installation to the manufacturing factory shop floor: the latest pre-terminated cabling solutions offer commercial and quality benefits in a wide variety of applications.

Complex installations

For Category 6 cabling in particular, a more demanding performance criteria means it is more sensitive to installation quality. 鈥淲hile in the past installers could give themselves a degree of leeway on installations, the more stringent requirements for link and channel testing in Category 6 cabling means more stringent installation practices are required,鈥� explains Peter Hawtin, product manager at HellermannTyton. 鈥淭his, coupled with the need to revisit terminations when failures occur, has made for tedious and frustrating installations, with lost time and money for all involved.鈥�

Some of the important potential problem areas that installers need to consider during installation of Category 6 cabling are pulling tension, bend radius, cable compression, kinking, the number of cables in the bundle, cable jacket unsheathing and pair-untwisting. Termination problems, such as cutting sheathing back too far can really have an impact, as can tiny details like the routing of each wire at the back of the jack and even the order in which the punch-downs are done.

What is pre-terminated cable?

Pre-terminated systems are a revolution in copper and fibre network cabling, offering an advanced alternative to traditional installation methods. 鈥淭hese systems bring the time-consuming, difficult and error-prone area of cable termination under cabling manufacturers鈥� control,鈥� comments Hawtin. 鈥淭he cable is terminated on the manufacturer鈥檚 factory shop floor, in a stringent quality controlled environment, and the systems arrive pre-labelled and pre-tested. The upshot is improved quality and performance.鈥�

RapidNet from HellermannTyton is an example of a pre-terminated system. This flexible system has been developed to supply contractors with many termination options and uses bundled cable containing six high performance Category 6 UTP or FTP cables bound together. Each six-way cable is cut to customer-specific lengths and terminated to meet the demands of the installation. Termination configuration options vary and include end-to-end patented cassettes, floor, ceiling and floor box options, as well as open-ended assemblies.

Patch panel cassettes make the installer鈥檚 job much easier. They present the pre-terminated and test-certified RJ45 ports encased in the robust cassette shell, which includes internal cable strain relief, labelling and a slide release mechanism. Each six-port cassette is inserted into a metal 1 U blank patch panel, which is fixed to the rack using rack-snaps in place of cage nuts, saving even more installation time. The panel has four rectangular openings supplied pre-labelled front and rear, to ensure that each cassette is inserted into the correct sequence along the panel.

Fibre installation and termination is also particularly labour intensive and highly skilled. The RapidNet pre-terminated fibre solution, available with OM1, OM2 and OM3 multi-mode and OS1 single-mode optical fibre cables, works in the same way as the copper version. Fibre cassettes present 12 factory terminated and tested LC connections that have all been machine polished to ensure insertion loss is kept to a minimum. The rugged cassettes protect all the terminations, reducing the risk of damage to the sensitive individual fibres. Bend radius is controlled to ensure improved transmission of single-mode systems.

The universal design allows both copper and fibre cassettes to be used within the same modular panel.

The benefits

Cable termination is one of the most time-consuming and skilled elements of a cabling installation. By using a pre-terminated solution, the time needed by contractors to install the cable is significantly reduced.

Hawtin explains: 鈥淯sing traditional methods, the installation and termination of a typical 24-port patch panel takes approximately 1路25 h. Of this time, the on-site installer spends several minutes screwing the patch panel into the rack using cage nuts and screws, the rest of the time is spent terminating the 24 horizontal cables to the rear of the patch panel.

鈥淎 typical 42 U cabinet may contain 28 x 24 port patch panels in one rack. The length of time spent terminating these panels would be on average 35 hours. With a RapidNet solution, it is possible to reduce the installation time by as much as 75% 鈥� in this example, that equates to saving more than 26 labour hours in the distribution area alone.鈥�

The fact that installations can now be completed so much more quickly than by traditional methods minimises business disruption and downtime for customers and helps contractors manage staff resources more productively.

Even though the installation is completed extremely quickly, performance is never compromised. Pre-terminated systems offer guaranteed repeatable and reliable quality, because each individual link has been terminated in a factory quality controlled environment and fully tested before being delivered to the site.

鈥淔or our pre-terminated solution, performance testing is carried out in compliance to ISO 11801 and EIA/TIA 568 standards,鈥� says Hawtin. 鈥淔or copper we test permanent links to the standards鈥� requirements with an approved tester. For fibre, all links on each assembly are tested to the same standards with an approved tester for insertion loss, length and polarity.鈥�

In commercial terms, pre-terminated systems optimise skilled engineers鈥� time, meaning an installation company has spare resource to carry out more work than they could using traditional methods. As engineer resource is more abundant, there is a reduced likelihood that extra labour will need to be subcontracted at extra cost and inconvenience. As the higher skilled elements of installation are performed off site, less specialised and experienced technicians can comfortably carry out the installation on site. This has the double benefit of lowering labour costs and freeing up the more qualified engineers for supervisory roles. Furthermore, engineers will need to spend a much shorter time on site, so travel and subsistence costs are much lower than usual.

鈥淯ltimately, installing pre-terminated systems like RapidNet means contractors benefit from higher margins and greater flexibility,鈥� summarises Hawtin.

Applications

Pre-terminated systems are ideal for high performance cabling requirements. High standards of factory pre-termination and meticulous testing means quality can be relied on. Because they can be installed so quickly and carry a high degree of performance and reliability, they are an ideal solution for mission-critical data centres, temporary networks and disaster recovery planning.

Just as effective in open raised floor environments, pre-terminated solutions are also suitable for underfloor or ceiling void installations. Within the communications room, manually conducting moves, adds and changes is much more convenient with pre-terminated solutions than employing traditional systems.

鈥淲hether undertaking panel-to-panel installations within a communications room or completely flood wiring an entire premises, pre-terminated solutions present a fast and more reliable alternative to traditional solutions,鈥� argues Hawtin.

In summary, pre-terminated solutions offer contractors a legitimate way to cut corners without cutting quality. Pre-terminated solutions significantly improve cabling contractors鈥� speed by as much as 75% and address the critical issues of quality control, consistent repeatable terminations and the human resource required on site.