Take A Look at The Telecommunications Rooms

Written by Julianus Yu

Some components and considerations that pertain to telecommunications rooms must be taken into account during the design stage.

LAN Wiring
The first item inside a telecommunications room that will draw your attention is the large bundle of cables coming into the closet. The bundle contains the cables that run from the closet to the individual stations and may also contain cables that run from the room to other rooms or closets in the building. The bundle of cables is usually bound together with straps and leads the LAN cables to a patch panel, which connects the individual wires within a particular cable to network ports on the front of the panel. These ports can then be connected to the network equipment (hubs, switches, routers, and so on), or two ports can be connected together with a patch cable. Patch panels are the main products used in LAN installations today because they are extremely cost effective and allow great flexibility when connecting workstations.

Telephone Wiring
The telephone cables from the individual telephones will come into the telecommunications room in approximately the same location as the data cables. They will then be terminated in some kind of patch panel (cross-connect). In many older installations, the individual wires will be punched down in 110-blocks, a type of punch-down block that uses small “fingers” of metal to connect different UTP wires together. Instead of using punch-down blocks, it is also possible to use the same type of patch panel as is used for the UTP data cabling for the telephone cross-connect. As with the data cabling, that option enhances the flexibility of your cabling system. The wires on the other side of the block usually come from the telephone PBX. The PBX controls all the incoming and outgoing calls as well as which pair of wires is for which telephone extension.

Power Requirement
Telecommunications rooms have some unique power requirements. First of all, each of the many small electronic devices will need power, and a single-duplex outlet
will not have enough outlets. Additionally, these devices should all be on an electrical circuit dedicated to that wiring closet and separate from the rest of the building. The wiring closet should be equipped with a minimum of two dedicated three-wire 120-volt AC duplex outlets, each on its own 20-amp circuit, for network and system-equipment power.

HVAC Requirement
Computer and networking equipment generates much heat. Place enough equipment in a telecommunications room without ventilation, and the temperature will quickly rise to dangerous levels. Just as sunstroke affects the human brain, high temperatures are the downfall of electronic components. The room temperature should match the ambient temperature of office space occupied by humans, and keep it at that temperature year round.

For this reason, telecommunications rooms should be sufficiently ventilated. At the very least, some kind of fan should exchange the air in the closet. Some telecommunications rooms are pretty good-sized rooms with their own HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) controls.

Cabling Management
Cabling management is guiding the cable to its intended destination without damaging it or its data-carrying capabilities. This management include protection as describe below;

1. Physical Protection
Cables can be fragile—easily cut, stretched, and broken. When performing a proper cabling installation, cables should be protected. Many items are currently used to protect cables from damage, including the following:

• Conduit

• Cable trays

• Standoffs

• D-rings

2. Electrical Protection
Variations in power can cause problems ranging from having to reboot after a short loss of service to damaged equipment and data. Fortunately, a number of products, including surge protectors, standby power supplies, uninterruptible power supplies, and line conditioners, are available to help protect sensitive systems from the dangers of lightning strikes, dirty (uneven) power, and accidental power disconnection.

3. Fire Protection
In most residential and commercial buildings, firewalls are built specifically to stop the spread of a fire within a building. Because firewalls prevent the spread of fire, it is important not to compromise the protection they offer by punching holes in them for network cables. If you need to run a network cable through a firewall, first try to find another route that won’t compromise the integrity of the firewall. If you can’t, you must use an approved firewall penetration device, These devices form a tight seal around each cable that passes through the firewall.