James Gitongori Ombogo

 Cable system and infrastructure constraints

 Structured Cabling-System Components
 Wall plates and cable connectors
 Cabling-system design and installation
 cable types
 Cabling case studies
•Listcommon cable types used in networking
•Describe how UTP cables are made
•Explain how UTP cables are used in Ethernet

networks
•Demonstrate the ability to make a working

patch cable
•Name the two wiring standards used for wired

Ethernet networks and their uses

• Networks never get smaller or less complicated.
• Build one cabling system that will accommodate voice
and data.
• Always install more cabling than you currently
require. Those extra outlets will come in handy
someday.
• Use structured-cabling standards when building a new
cabling system. Avoid anything proprietary!
• Quality counts! Use high-quality cabling and cabling
components. Cabling is the foundation of your network; if the
cabling fails, nothing else will matter. For a given grade or
category of cabling, you’ll see a range of pricing, but the
highest prices don’t necessarily mean the highest quality. Buy
based on the manufacturer’s reputation and proven
performance, not the price.
 Don’t scrimp on installation costs. Even quality components
and cable must be installed correctly; poor workmanship has
trashed more than one cabling installation.
 Plan for higher speed technologies than are commonly
available today. Just because 1000Base-T Ethernet seems
unnecessary today does not mean it won’t be a requirement
in five years.
 Documentation, although dull, is a necessary thing that
should be taken care of while you’re setting up the cabling
system. If you wait, more pressing concerns may cause you
to ignore it.
 Consistency of design and installation;
 Conformance to physical and transmission

line requirements;
 A basis for examining a proposed system

expansion and other changes; and

 Uniform documentation.
 A structured cabling system is a complete
system of cabling and associated hardware,
which provides a comprehensive
telecommunications infrastructure. This
infrastructure serves a wide range of uses,
such as to provide telephone service or
transmit data through a computer network. It
should not be device dependent.
 Unstructured networks
 Structured cabling installations typically
include: entrance facilities; vertical and
horizontal backbone pathways; vertical and
horizontal backbone cables; horizontal
pathways; horizontal cables; work area
outlets; equipment rooms;
telecommunications closets; cross-connect
facilities; multi-user telecommunications
outlet assemblies (MUTOA); transition points;
and consolidation points.
 Entrance facilities contain the cables, network
demarcation point(s), connecting hardware,
protection devices and other equipment that
connect to the access provider (AP) or private
network cabling. It includes connections
between outside plant and inside building
cabling.
 The design aspects of the equipment room are specified in
the EIA/TIA-569 standard. Equipment rooms usually house
equipment of higher complexity than telecommunication
closets. An equipment room may provide any or all of the
functions of a telecommunications closet.
 The environmentally controlled centralized space for
telecommunications equipment is usually more complex
than a telecommunications room (TR) or
telecommunications enclosure (TE). It usually houses the
main cross-connect (MC) [Distributor C] and may also
contain the intermediate cross-connects (ICs) [Distributor B],
horizontal cross-connects (HCs) [Distributor A], or both.
• The backbone cabling provides interconnection between
telecommunications rooms, equipment rooms, access provider
(AP) spaces and entrance facilities. There are two subsystems
defined for backbone cabling:
• Cabling Subsystem 2 – Backbone cabling between the horizontal
cross-connect (HC) [Distributor A (DA)] and the intermediate
cross-connect (IC) [Distributor B (DB)]
• Cabling Subsystem 3 – Backbone cabling between an intermediate
cross-connect
(IC) [Distributor B (DB)] and the main cross-connect (MC)
[Distributor C (DC)]
Recognized cabling:
• 100-ohm twisted-pair cabling: Category 3, Category 5e,
Category 6 or Category 6A
• Multimode optical fiber cabling: 850 nm laser-optimized 50/125
μm is recommended; 62.5/125 μm and 50/125 μm is allowed
• Single-mode optical fiber cabling
 A telecommunications closet is the area within a building
that houses the telecommunications cabling system
equipment. This includes the mechanical terminations
and/or cross-connect for the horizontal and backbone
cabling system.
 A TR or TE houses the terminations of horizontal and
backbone cables to connecting hardware including any
jumpers or patch cords. It may also contain the IC or MC
for different portions of the backbone cabling system. The
TR or TE also provides a controlled environment to house
telecommunications equipment, connecting hardware and
splice closures serving a portion of the building.
 The use of a telecommunications enclosure (TE) is for a
specific implementation and not a general case. It is
intended to serve a smaller floor area than a TR and may
be used in addition to the minimum "one TR per floor"
rule.
• The horizontal cabling system extends from the work area’s
telecommunications information outlet to the
telecommunications room (TR) or telecommunications enclosure
(TE). It includes horizontal cable, mechanical terminations,
jumpers and patch cords located in the TR or TE and may
incorporate multiuser telecommunications outlet assemblies
(MUTOAs) and consolidation points (CPs). The maximum
horizontal cable length shall be 90 m (295 ft.), independent of
media type. If a MUTOA is deployed, the maximum horizontal
balanced twisted-pair copper cable length shall be reduced.
• Recognized cabling:
• 4-pair 100-ohm unshielded or shielded twisted-pair cabling:
Category 5e, Category 6 or Category 6A
• Multimode optical fiber cabling, 2-fiber (or higher fiber count)
• Single-mode optical fiber cabling, 2-fiber (or higher fiber count)
 Work area (WA) components extend from the
telecommunications outlet/connector end of
the horizontal cabling system to the WA
equipment.
 A minimum of two telecommunications

outlets (permanent links) should be provided

for each work area. Multiuser
telecommunications outlet assemblies
(MUTOAs), if used, are part of the WA.
 Before designing your system, you should
understand how the following elements
contribute to a successful installation:
 Using proper design
 Using quality materials
 Practicing good workmanship

Each of these aspects can drastically affect

network performance.
• A proper cabling-system design is paramount to a
well-functioning cabling infrastructure. A proper
cabling-system design is simply a plan for installing
the cable runs and their associated devices.
• So what is aproper design? A proper cabling-system

design will take into account five primary criteria:

●Desired standards and performance characteristics
●Flexibility
●Longevity
●Ease of administration
●Economy
 Of the proper cabling-design criteria listed, standards and
performance characteristics is the most critical. standards
ensure that products from many different vendors can
communicate. When you design your cabling layout, you
should decide on standards for all aspects of your cabling
installation so that the various products used will
interconnect.
 Additionally, you should choose products for your design
that will meet desired performance characteristics. For
example, if you will be deploying a broadcast video system
over your LAN in addition to the everyday file and print
traffic, it is important that the cabling system be designed
with a higher-capacity network in mind (e.g., Fast Ethernet
or fiber optic).
• No network is a stagnant entity. As new technologies are
introduced, companies will adopt them at different rates. When
designing a cabling system, you should plan for MACs (moves,
adds, and changes) so that if your network changes your cabling
design will accommodate those changes. In a properly designed
cabling system, a new device or technology will be able to
connect to any point within the cabling system.
• One aspect of flexibility that many people overlook is the number
of cabling outlets or drops in a particular room. Many companies
take a minimalist approach; that is, they put only the number of
drops in each room that is currently necessary. That design is fine
for the time being, but what happens when an additional device
or devices are needed? It is usually easier to have an extra drop or
two (or five) installed while all of the others are being installed
than it is to return later to install a single drop.
• Let’s face it, cabling is hard work. You must climb above
ceilings and, on occasion, snake through crawlspaces to
properly run the cables. Therefore, when designing a cabling
system, you want to make sure that the design will stand the
test of time and last for a number of years without having to
be replaced. A great case in point: Many companies removed
their coaxial-cable-based networks in favor of the newer,
cheaper, more reliable UTP cabling. Others are removing
their UTP cabling in favor of fiber-optic cable’s higher
bandwidth. Now, wouldn’t it make more sense for those
companies that already had coaxial cable to directly upgrade
to fiber-optic cable (or at least to a newly released, high-
end, high-quality copper UTP cabling system) rather than
having to “rip and replace” again in a few years? Definitely. If
you have to upgrade your cabling system or are
• currently designing your system, it is usually best to
upgrade to the most current technology you can afford. But
you should also keep in mind that budget is almost always
the limiting factor
• Another element of a proper cabling design is ease of
administration. This means that a network administrator (or
subcontractor) should be able to access the cabling system and
make additions and changes, if necessary. Some of these changes
might include the following:
● Removing a station from the network
● Replacing hubs, routers, and other telecommunications equipment
● Installing new cables
●Repairing existing wires
• Many elements make cabling-system administration easier, the

most important of which is documentation (discussed later in this

chapter). Another element is neatness. A rat’s nest of cables is
difficult to administrate because it is difficult to tell which cable
goes where.
 Finally, how much money you have to spend will play a part
in your cabling-system design. If you had an unlimited
budget, you’d go fiber-to-the-desktop without question.
All your futureproofing worries would be over (at least until
the next fiber-optic innovation).
 The reality is you probably don’t have an unlimited budget,
so the best cabling system for you involves compromise—
taking into account the four elements listed previously and
deciding how to get the most for your investment. You have
to do some very basic value-proposition work, factoring in
how long you expect to be tied to your new cabling system,
what your bandwidth needs are now, and what your
bandwidth needs might be in the future.
• Another element of a successful cabling installation is the use of
quality materials. The quality of the materials used in a cabling
installation will directly affect the transmission efficiency of a
network. Many times, a vendor will sell many different cabling
product lines, each with a different price point. The old adage that
you get what you pay for really does apply to cabling supplies.
• All the components that make up a cabling plant can be purchased
in both high- and lowquality product lines. For example, you can
buy RJ-45 connectors from one vendor that are $0.03 apiece but
rated at only Category 3 (i.e., they won’t work for 100Mbps
networks). Another vendor’s RJ-45 connectors may cost twice as
much but be rated for Category 6 (155Mbps and above, over
copper).
• That doesn’t always mean that low price means low quality. Some
vendors make low-price, high-quality cabling supplies. Without
playing favorites to a particular vendor, we’ll just say that it doesn’t
hurt to shop around when buying your cabling supplies. Check the
Internet sites of many different cabling vendors to compare prices.
• There is a saying that any job worth doing is worth doing
correctly. When installing cabling, this saying is especially
true because shoddy workmanship can cause data-
transmission problems and thus lower the network’s
effective throughput. If you try to rush a cabling job to meet
a deadline, you will usually end up doing some or the entire
job over again. For example, when punching down the
individual wires in a UTP installation, excessive untwisting of
the individual wires can cause excessive near-end crosstalk
(NEXT), thus lowering the effective data carrying capacity of
that connection. The connection must be removed and
reterminated to correct the problem.
• The same holds true for fiber-optic cable connections. If you
rush any part of the connector installation, the effective
optical transmission capacity of that connection will
probably be reduced. A reduced capacity means that you
may not be able to use that connection at all
• because the light will be refracted too far outside of the fiber
and too much extraneous light will get into the connection,
causing it to fail.
 Coaxial cable

 Unshielded
twisted pair

 Fiber optic
 Unshielded
 Twisted (why?) pairs of insulated
conductors
 Covered by
insulating sheath
Category 1 Voice only (Telephone)

Category 2 Data to 4 Mbps (Localtalk)

Category 3 Data to 10Mbps (Ethernet)

Category 4 Data to 20Mbps (Token ring)

Category 5 Data to 100Mbps (Fast Ethernet)
Category 5e Data to 1000Mbps (Gigabit Ethernet)
Category 6 Data to 2500Mbps (Gigabit Ethernet)
 1000Mbps data capacity
 For runs of up to 90 meters
 Solid core cable ideal for structural

installations (PVC or Plenum)

 Stranded cable ideal for patch cables
 Terminated with RJ-45 connectors
 Cat5e cable
 RJ45 connectors
 Cable stripper
 Scissors
 Crimping tool
1. Strip cable end
2. Untwist wire ends
3. Arrange wires
4. Trim wires to size
5. Attach connector
6. Check
7. Crimp
8. Test
 Strip 1 – 1½” of insulating sheath
 Avoid cutting into conductor insulation
 Sort wires by insulation colors
 TIA/EIA 568A: GW-G OW-Bl BlW-O BrW-Br
 TIA/EIA 568B: OW-O GW-Bl BlW-G BrW-Br
 Trim all wires evenly
 Leave about ½” of wires exposed
 Maintain wire order,
left-to-right, with
RJ45 tab facing
downward
 Do all wires extend to end?
 Is sheath well inside connector?
 Squeeze firmly to crimp connecter
onto cable end (8P)
 Does the cable work?