Structured Cabling

Data Cables are the lifeblood of a company’s IT infrastructure and are always evolving to allow for greater speeds and bandwidth.

Structured cabling is currently accepted as the preferred platform for transferring data, voice, multimedia applications and other information around commercial, industrial, office and home environments.

Data cabling has become an integral part of the day-to-day functioning of any business wishing to perform at maximum speed and profitability.

Given the critical nature of your data cabling installation it is highly important that you employ the services of professional data cabling contractors who have been trained and certified.

DNI Data & Electrical Installations Ltd is one of the UKs leading data cabling companies with industry experience spanning 20 years. As a professional data cabling contractor, we provide bespoke design, installation and testing services to all industry sectors throughout the UK.
Our project management team and data cabling installers (engineers) are highly trained and qualified professionals.
DNI Data & Electrical Installations Ltd has a wealth of commercial experience in the design and installation of data cabling systems. We are trained, accredited and certified to install data cabling solutions from venders such as Excel & TE Connectivity (Formally Hellerman Tyton).

Structured Cabling Infrastucture

The infrastructure usually consists of Category 5E or Category 6 cable. This cable is made up of four twisted pairs enabling speed of up to a GigaBit per second data transfer. These pairs are carefully 'balanced' to ensure acceptable high frequency performance up to 200 Mhz.

Since the phasing out of Local Area Network systems (LAN), such as Ethernet and Token Ring, the public and private sectors have driven the use of category data cabling systems, including CAT3 to CAT5, which have since been superseded by the currently ratified CAT5E, CAT6 and CAT6A cabling solutions.

CAT 5e and CAT 6 are very effective cabling solutions for office networks. If you’re opening new offices, relocating or refurbishing your existing office it’s certainly something worth thinking about. It can give you big savings and make future staff moves and I.T equipment relocations within your offices much cheaper, quicker and easier.

Your structured cabling’s life span could be up to 25 years – that is 3 to 5 times the average lifespan of your network hardware. With this in mind it is important to ensure any cabling you have installed on your premises meets industry standards, both in installation and testing practice.

Why CAT6?

We are often asked – “Why CAT6?” After all CAT5e superseded CAT5 because it would support 1000mbps (gigabit) networking so why the need for a higher standard? It is a legitimate question and to fully understand the answer it helps to understand the basics of network protocols.

Put simply, while CAT5e can facilitate the transmission of data packets at gigabit speed, it is limited in the amount of packets it can cope with, resulting in data loss. Because reliable protocols such as TCP resend lost packets this results in the user experiencing a slowdown over the network, for example when opening a large graphics file.

By utilising all four pairs within the cable, increasing the frequency of the twists in each pair and reinforcing the cable with a plastic spine, CAT6 reduces the amount of “cross-talk” that cause this level of data loss.

In other words Cat5e and CAT6 are like two highways with the same speed limit, but the CAT6 highways has many more lanes so traffic jams are less likely.

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So Who Does Need CAT6?

Anyone rendering large graphics file over a network – some 3D CAD programmes can produce files measured in gigabytes – such as architects, structural engineers, in fact any designers or technicians that work with large files. Then there is the issue of future-proofing. There is no doubt that networking has benefited enormously from the increase in data transmission speeds from 10 mbps to 100mbps and there is no reason to believe that 1000mbps will not be considered the norm a few years hence.

CAT6 costs about 20% more than CAT5e, so is it worth the extra expenditure if all you anticipate using in future are internet, email and basic documents and spreadsheets? It is also worth bearing in mind that data will only cross the network at the speed of the slowest network device which means possible investment in gigabit switches and NICs to enjoy the full benefit of gigabit networking over CAT6.

The cables are routed in a 'star' configuration from a central hub, comms cabinet or patch panel to the areas where the service is required and terminated with RJ45 data outlets.

With the addition of dedicated 'active' equipment and various connecting cables, the structured cabling is now capable of carrying network data, telephone signals, CCTV images, video conferencing data and music.

Once installed the cabling is tested to industry standards to ensure correct continuity, identify split pairs, check for minimal attenuation as well as near end, powersum and alien crosstalk.

Crosstalk is interference that causes spikes with data packets, often resulting in degradation of the network performance and in the worst case network failure, which is often incorrectly attributed to the installed active equipment.

Correct installation practice and accurate testing is crucial to network reliability and performance.

Dependant on your environment, your data cabling system could consist of a variety of cable types which include serial cables such as RS232 and RS422 which are generally used to control plant and machinery. The data cabling used within modern local area networks will consist of cat 5e, cat 6, cat 6a and cat 7.
Your data cabling installation should be tested and certified to industry recognised standards. DNI utilise test equipment from Fluke & Ideal Networks. We perform a 100% standards based test across all of the data cables that we install. The test results are checked and validated by the installed system manufacturer and then published in PDF format and provided to the end user.
The modern business depends on a fast and reliable data network for distribution of information, so it is vital to implement an infrastructure that will deliver.
Whether you are relocating, re-structuring or looking to upgrade your existing systems, our experience and expertise will minimise disruption and help you to reap the maximum benefit from your investment.

From planning small moves to designing and installing large corporate wide infrastructures, DNI can support you all the way from concept to completion. Our services include the design and implementation of the following systems:

Category 5e
Category 6
Category 6A
Category 7
Fibre Optic
All types of Cable Containment

We can provide structured cabling solutions for your premises, allowing your computers and telephones and other I.T. equipment to share the same network. Whether it is a complete solution, additional ports added onto your existing cabling or simple extension relocation.