Ten mistakes in network cabling

Network Cabling is a very tedious and complex task. However, it seems that there are still some people who are engaged in this task with insufficient knowledge and experience. For example, a large number of telephone engineering and electrician personnel also work on network cabling. Facts have proved that this practice has many potential risks. For the telephone system, the possibility of unexpected errors can be tolerated, and this situation should be avoided as far as possible in the data line. In this article, we will focus on the application of twisted pair wires in actual cabling. The following describes ten errors that need to be avoided in actual cabling.

I. No Prospective Planning for the overall network

At present, Gigabit Networks have been popularized, but many companies still need to continue to use network connections from MB to the desktop. For example, some companies need to move to new office locations, which requires re-deployment of network lines. In this case, traditional network cable technology that can meet the needs of current applications should be adopted, we can still choose a new network cable technology that can be continuously upgraded in the next few years. Note that the cost of human resources is the highest part during project operation. Although it seems unreasonable to select a more advanced wiring scheme during the implementation of the actual project, we recommend that you consider using products with better quality as much as possible. In this way, your enterprise will not be embarrassed when facing higher network requirements for a long period of time. Therefore, ensuring that the network cabling technology used is not outdated is a must for network cabling personnel.

Ii. Use different lines for voice and data services

Considering the cost, many companies used to use different network cables of different specifications and types in their voice and data services. Because the voice business does not have high requirements on line conditions, it can be up to standard with a single wire, therefore, providing a cheaper line for the voice service can ensure that the data line receives a large portion of the budget.

Till today, although the cost of Integrated Wiring is still a small expense, the biggest expense has become the cost of human resources, and the line itself does not occupy the highest investment share. In addition, with the popularization of the voice telephone technology, the voice service has become a project in many environments where data requirements depend on data-level network cable support. In fact, if the company does have such requirements, you only need to select the appropriate voice phone equipment, you can use the existing data cable and the built-in Ethernet switch of the voice phone equipment to meet the corresponding requirements, this avoids the waste of money caused by repeated cabling.

In short, before the beginning of work, we cannot simply assume that the voice service only needs to use the old three-class line. If you need to deploy a separate line for the phone, you should ensure that its performance can reach the level that supports the data line.

3. No effective management of lines

Generally, you will think that increasing the number of lines will help the existing system. The increase in Trapezoidal racks and the subsequent rack-based line management will indeed lead to an increase in operating costs. But it can also make daily maintenance work very simple. It should be noted that the line management work will not be automatically terminated because of the final security of the project. When more and more lines are added, the reality will change. Therefore, we need to identify cables, classify cables by color, or take special measures of other types to ensure that relevant lines can be easily identified under any circumstances.

4. Parallel layout of Network cables and cables

The "Twisted Pair" unshielded twisted pair mode is used for data transmission. The magnetic field produced by low voltage running through wires is an important part of the communication chain. When the unshielded network cable is parallel to the wire, the magnetic field interference will occur, which will lead to a large number of repeated and garbled information in the transmitted data. In many cases, this will lead to the failure of effective transmission between two locations, the transmission rate will rapidly decline, and frequent problems requiring repeated transmission.

If you must deploy a network cable near a wire, make sure that the network cable passes vertically rather than in parallel. Once upon a time, at the end of 1990s, the author encountered that the newly installed coaxial cable could not work normally. This line was originally responsible for connecting two very close buildings, after various troubleshooting, I suddenly found that the Overhead power lines and coaxial cables between the two buildings are wound together, resulting in serious electromagnetic interference, data cannot be transmitted normally.

5. The network cable and the "interference" device are in the same area

In the real environment, not only wires can interfere with data lines. Lighting fluorescent lights, motors, and related equipment that can produce electric or magnetic interference can have a serious impact on network cable data transmission. Therefore, when wiring, we need to ensure that the line is away from the region where these interference sources are located.

6. Ignore the actual distance limit

Before wiring, confirm the distance and range of the connection. For example, the distance between common twisted pair wires and typical Ethernet cabling is 100 meters in a gigabit network. If the company chooses a technology of 10 Gigabit or 40 thousand Gigabit, it should follow the specific design distance as the standard. For example, if the company intends to use twisted pair wires to run a 10-Gigabit network at a distance of more than 100 meters, it must select a 6A or higher network cable.

7. violation of laws and regulations

Laws and regulations play a decisive role in many aspects. Therefore, security risks may occur if they do not comply with the requirements of local regulations. For example, most places do not allow the use of polyvinyl chloride outer skin lines in air-cooled environments. Since polyvinyl chloride produces toxic gases during combustion, it may cause damage to firefighters and other emergency personnel.

If a low-voltage line is deployed without complying with local regulations, enterprises may face severe consequences of fines or even removal and re-wiring. Therefore, prior to the start of work, you should understand the responsibilities of yourself and ensure that all relevant contractors have met the requirements of local regulations.

8. Ignore line testing

After wiring is completed, various tools should be used to test each line to ensure that they can all meet the predefined requirements. The work involved includes verifying the transmission distance and cable specifications. In the case of a gigabit network, it is also necessary to verify the line to ensure that the corresponding requirements can be met.

9. Do not follow industry standards

As we all know, each network cable has eight separate lines. Therefore, as long as we can ensure that the two ends of the line use the same pattern and the type is consistent, we can connect them as needed. It turns out that this is wrong. Therefore, there is a reason for setting industry standards. In terms of wiring standards, line distortion and the impact of external environments must be taken into account. If these standards are not followed during cabling, problems such as interference and inefficiency may occur, negatively affecting the overall network performance. The standards mentioned here are EAI/TIA-568-A and B, which define how data-class lines are deployed.

10. No reasonable planning for new lines

When we need to use Ethernet switches in the network to handle the newly added lines, we need to specifically note that before scientific and reasonable planning, the use of Ethernet switches brings unknown factors and unstable risks to the entire network. Generally, users who use micro-switches only need to add one or two ports, so they do not need to plan traffic. The addition of additional ports may cause problems. If a new service requires a large amount of network resources to support it, try to avoid bottlenecks. Therefore, it should be noted that, in the absence of an absolute need to increase the number of switches and network ports, we should try to consider other methods for network resizing, for example, add new lines to expand the network scale.