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Horizontal and Vertical Cabling Management

Horizontal and Vertical Cabling Management

Telecommunications rooms and telecommunications enclosures refer to sections in building that house network equipment such as patch panels and cross-connects. The horizontal network cabling originates from these rooms.

Usually, the horizontal network cabling is terminated in termination blocks or patch panels and then it is distributed to other parts of the work area using horizontal pathways. Other networking equipment that may be found inside the telecommunications room include switches, LAN hubs, repeaters, and routers. It is also the place in the network where the backbone cables and equipment terminate.

The main purpose of the telecom enclosure is to serve a floor area that is quite smaller compared to that served by the telecom room. The cost of setting up a cabling system will differ depending on whether you are using telecom rooms or enclosures.

According to a comparison that was done by the Telecommunication Industry Association (TIA), you will save a lot of money by using many telecom enclosures on a floor as compared to using telecommunications room. This research by TIA indicated that you could save up to thirty percent of the money that you could have used to set up telecommunications rooms.
If you choose to use telecommunication rooms, the design and specifications you will use will be very important. The best design will be to stack the telecommunications rooms vertically between floors. When setting up the telecommunications rooms, you will need to do it with utmost care to avoid tight bends, cable stress, wrapping the cable too tightly, staples as well as excessive tension to the cables. With good cable management techniques, managing such pitfalls should not be a big problem.

When setting up a network, usually there are specifications or goals that you would like to achieve. You will, therefore, need to make sure that the cables and cable products are compliant to the goals that you would like to achieve both in the short run and in the long run. Short term goal you may want to achieve may include efficiency ensure that the products you use will accommodate future expansion without causing problems.

When setting up telecommunication rooms, also make sure that horizontal cabling terminates directly to a telecom outlet and not to a device that is application-specific. Use equipment cords or patch cables to connect the networking equipment with the cables. For instance, You should never set up a horizontal cabling in a manner that it directly comes out of the wall and then you plug it to a network adaptor or phone.

Apart from the telecommunications rooms and the telecommunications enclosures, it is also important to ensure that all other parts of the network are setup properly. The only way to come up with a well-structured cable system is to seek service of experts in this field. There are many structured cabling companies out there but you will need to choose the best among them if you the best system.

Check out the Article on Conduit Fill Guide for data cabling.