The next generation

For many years fibre-to-the-desk was going to be the next big thing in the world of building cabling data networks. More recently, wireless networking has taken on this mantle. But good old copper unshielded twisted pair (utp) keeps getting new leases of life and is still the dominant cabling media by a long way, so how do we know what’s best for our customers?

One size fits all?

As much as customers and installers might like one, where networking’s concerned a universal solution doesn’t exist. A single network is now the preferred way of handling voice, data, video and all other on-site communication facilities. The separate technologies of copper cable, optical fibre and wireless networking all exist separately for good reason. Each technology has its own merits and applications where they are most appropriate. Each also has its limitations.

Let’s take wireless or Wi-Fi first. It’s sexy and has considerable appeal to clients looking for an easy, quick fix solution. The spaghetti junction of under-desk cabling is all but eliminated, making offices tidier and avoiding the cost and time overheads that changes bring. There’s little or no drilling through walls and if you move office, you just unplug the wireless kit and go.

On the downside, the kit is not cheap. The Wi-Fi cards required in each pc are also expensive and to achieve rock solid wireless coverage additional apparatus is often needed to eliminate poor reception areas.

Although wireless systems are undoubtedly increasing in popularity and capability, they lag behind copper and fibre in terms of data-rate capacity and there are no signs of this changing. Critical also is the difficulty in managing the security aspects of wireless local area networks (wlans), which militates against wireless replacing copper or fibre for the majority of users.

For the time being wlans best suit residential users or small businesses where security is not a major concern and competitiveness is not dependent upon information technology.

High fibre diets

Fibre is good for you: this is true, although few nutritionists would advocate an all-fibre diet. The same applies to networking, even though some voices have argued the merits of a system using optical fibre cabling only, it needs to be part of a balanced network design with other media. In the past it was argued that copper cabling systems were reaching the upper limit of their capabilities, leading to predictions of a switch to all-fibre systems, with fibre installed from the server to the desk or workstation.

From an engineering standpoint fibre is a superb solution, technically elegant and in itself not an expensive proposition. The significant downside is the cost of the adapter equipment that interfaces user devices to the fibre.

Most active equipment such as switches and servers are currently supplied with copper interfaces on the equipment side. These are generally 10/100 Mbit/s or one Gbit/s Category 5e and 6 utp. To use fibre instead, much more expensive active equipment is needed or the copper interfaces must be discarded and replaced by more expensive fibre network interface cards (nics), hence users are effectively buying twice.

Nearly all desktop equipment such as pcs and printers also comes fitted with copper nics as standard. Upgrading to fibre nics or buying media converters for hundreds or thousands of devices will be a further major cost overhead.

This is not to suggest that fibre has no place in the total networking environment. For most applications technologists recommend a hybrid solution using a mix of fibre and copper. Fibre is entirely appropriate in the backbone and across the campus, whereas copper is the most frequent solution for the horizontal runs on individual floors. Copper in its utp form dominates the world market for horizontal cabling and the safest strategy for most users is to stick with trusted technology.

Copper catches up

From the beginning of electrical communications in the 1830s, copper was synonymous with cabling. Moreover, it was the unchallenged king until the last decade, when ever-increasing data speed needs handed to optical fibre a significant role in computer network cabling. But copper has caught up again.

The July launch of an augmented Category 6 copper cabling system delivering 10 Gbit/s Ethernet means that it is now neck and neck with fibre for speed. If you factor in copper’s installation and management advantages, plus the likelihood that 10 Gbit/s nics may one day be as prevalent as one Gigabit versions are today, and you can see why vendors, installers and users must all consider whether they need to review their networking strategies.

Brand named Krone CopperTen this new structured cabling product can carry 10 Gbit/s Ethernet signals for spans of 100 metres – the international standard for all office, organisational and industrial applications. It is based on an augmented version of the Category 6 data cabling system.

CopperTen complies with all the Category 6 standards, yet has ten times the data capacity. It enables users to install a system that works with their existing 10/100 Mbit/s and Gbit equipment, with the assurance of future-proof capacity for 10 Gbit/s in the coming years. 70 km of the cable and 2000 patch ports has already been installed at the data centre of a major international bank in the UK.

Being an augmented version of utp Category 6 systems, full backwards-compatibility is assured. No new installation techniques are involved, so deployment will not be delayed by the need to learn new skills. The only significant differences are its increase in data throughput and the peace of mind that this brings from future-proofing.

Future reality

Readers may be wondering just how many applications for 10 Gbit/s networking exist today – the honest answer is probably none. But many of the major active equipment manufacturers are working with IEEE (the Ethernet standards body) and they will have the 10GBASE-T standard for 10 Gbit/s Ethernet finished by mid-2006. They will all be aiming to start shipping 10 Gbit/s ports from that day – maybe even before. So 10 Gbit/s over copper is not a maybe, it’s a definite.

A serious reality is that most organisations find the opportunity to cable a building or floor only once every seven to ten years. This obliges them to seize any available opportunity to future-proof their installation. This opportunity must be balanced against the direct cost of the cabling installation.

In fact, the installation costs represent only a minor part of the total cost of deploying information and communications technology and network systems, particularly when it is considered that structured cabling installations generally have a much longer life expectancy than the active equipment that they support.

With opportunities for cabling restricted to once every seven to ten years, and given that it is fully backwards-compatible with Category 5e and 6, it makes sound business sense for data intensive networks to deploy ten times the capacity with CopperTen cabling from now on in order to futureproof users’ installations.