Structured cabling is known as the system of cables, connectors, trunking 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 adherence of structured cabling to a standard allows this type of system to offer installation flexibility and independence from providers and protocols, as well as offering a wide capacity for growth and being easy to manage.
In these cases, the laying is usually developed with copper twisted pair cable (for IEEE 802.3 type networks), although fiber optic cable or coaxial cable can also be used.
What structured cabling allows is to transport, within a building or enclosure, the signals that come from an emitter to its corresponding receiver. It is, therefore, a physical network that can combine UTP cables, connection blocks and adapters, among other elements.
By supporting various telecommunications devices, structured cabling allows it to be installed or modified without the need for prior knowledge of the products that will be used on it.
When laying, the extension of the cabling, the segmentation of the traffic, the possible appearance 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, trunk or backbone cable (which interconnects various rooms) and the telecommunications room (with telecommunications equipment).
Another concept related to structured cabling is the grounding and bridging system; it is a fundamental component in a modern cabinet. The objective of this resource is to divert to ground any undue provision of electrical current to the devices that are within reach of the users, which happens as a result of an error in the insulation of the active conductors.
According to abbreviationfinder, it is noteworthy that the drawings do not always indicate the existence of the grounding (also known as ground wire, well grounded or grounded, among other names given), and may be unique to the circuits or branches which are in contact with trays, pass boxes or conduits. The installation of the safety ground cables is carried out underground.
On the other hand, there is capacitance, also called electrical capacity (the property of a body to conserve an electrical charge), which can cause distortions in the signal that is transmitted through a cable. Capacitance increases the longer the wire and the thinner the insulation layer. A cable tester can be used to measure capacitance, which can help determine if the cable has been stretched or bent.
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.
