Newsflash

Taiwan earthquake damages undersea Internet cables

A major earthquake and several aftershocks in Taiwan, which injured dozens of people and caused several fires on Thursday, also sent Chunghwa Telecom workers scrambling to fix undersea fiber-optic telecommunications cables to prevent service disruptions around Asia.

Taiwan's biggest telecommunications company said the initial 6.4-magnitude earthquake, which struck near the southern Taiwan city of Pingtung, damaged four undersea cables in six different places, knocking out service for parts of the day Thursday and early Friday. Global communications and Internet service on all networks has already been restored, mainly by rerouting service on undamaged cables.

Office Networking (Cable)

Wall-Plate Design and Installation Issues

Written by Julianus Yu

When you plan your cabling-system installation, you must be aware of a few wall-plate installation issues to make the most efficient installation. The majority of these installation issues come from compliance with the ANSI/TIA/EIA-570-A (for residential) and ANSI/TIA/EIA-568-B (for commercial installations) telecommunications Standards. You’ll have to make certain choices about how best to conform to these Standards based on the type of installation you are doing. These choices will dictate the different steps you’ll need to take during the installation of the different kinds of wall plates.

Manufacturer System

There is no “universal” wall plate. Hundreds of different wall plates are available, each with its design merits and drawbacks. The most important thing to remember about using a particular manufacturer’s wall-plate system in your structured-cabling system is that it is a system. Each component in a wall-plate system is designed to work with the other components and, generally speaking, can’t be used with components from other systems. When designing your cabling system, you must choose the manufacturer and wall-plate system that best suits your needs.

Separating Voice and Data Patch Panels

Written by Julianus Yu

Some installations of voice and data cabling will terminate the cabling on the same patch panel. Although this is not entirely frowned upon by cabling professionals, many will tell you that it is more desirable to have a separate patch panel dedicated to voice applications. This is essential if you use a different category of cable for voice than for data (such as if you use Category 6 cable for data but Category 5e cable for voice). This makes the cabling installation much easier to document and to understand.

Best Practices for Copper Installation

Written by Julianus Yu

We used our own installations of copper cabling, as well as the tips and techniques of many others, to create guidelines for you to follow to ensure that your UTP cabling system will support all the applications you intend it to. These guidelines include the following:

Following standards

One of the most important elements to planning and deploying a new telecommunications infrastructure is to make sure you are following a Standard. In the United States, this Standard is the ANSI/TIA/EIA-568-B Commercial Building Telecommunications Cabling Standard. Standards development usually lags behind what is available on the market, as manufacturers try to advance their technology to gain market share. Getting the latest innovations incorporated into a standard is difficult because these technologies are often not tested and deployed widely enough for the standards committees to feel comfortable approving them.

Why Picking the Right Patch Cables?

Written by Julianus Yu

Patch cables (or patch cords) are the cables that are used to connect 110-type connecting blocks, patch-panel ports, or telecommunication outlets (wallplate outlets) to network equipment or telephones. You should purchase factory-made patch cables. Patch cables are a critical part of the link between a network device (such as a PC) and the network equipment (such as a hub).

Determining appropriate transmission requirements and testing methodology for patch cords was one of the holdups in completing the ANSI/TIA/EIA-B.2-1 Category 6 specification. Low-quality, poorly made, and damaged patch cables very frequently contribute to network problems. Often the patch cable is considered the weakest link in the structured cabling system. Poorly made patch cables will contribute to attenuation loss and increased crosstalk.

Common Cabling Tools

Written by Julianus Yu

A number of tools are common to most cabling tool kits: wire strippers, wire cutters, cable crimpers, punch-down tools, fish tape, and toning tools. Most of these tools are essential for installing even the most basic of cabling systems.

Wire Strippers
Strippers for UTP, ScTP, and STP cables are used to remove the outer jacket and have to accommodate the wide variation in the geometry of UTP cables. Some types use spring tension to help keep the blade at the proper cutting depth.

About Cabling Racks, Enclosures, & The Component Inside

Written by Julianus Yu

Racks are the pieces of hardware that help you organize cabling infrastructure. These racks are commonly called just 19-inch racks, Mounting holes are spaced between 5/8 and two inches apart, so you can be assured that no matter what your preferred equipment vendor is, its equipment will fit in your rack.

Here is generally types of racking system available for purchase;

Wall-Mounted Brackets
For small installations and areas where economy of space is a key consideration, wall-mounted brackets may provide the best solution. Racks such as the one in Figure are ideal for small organizations that may only have a few dozen workstations or phone outlets but are still concerned about building an organized cabling infrastructure.

About Wiring Closets

Written by Julianus Yu

Wiring closets are known by a number of names and acronyms. Although some cabling professionals use the term wiring closets, others call them intermediate cross-connects (ICCs) or intermediate distribution frames (IDFs). The ANSI/TIA/EIA-568-B Standard refers to wiring closets as telecommunications rooms. They are usually remote locations in a large or multistory building.

The wiring closets are all connected to a central wiring center known by the ANSI/TIA/EIA-568-B Standard as an equipment room. Other cabling professionals call this the main distribution frame (MDF) or the main cross-connect (MCC). Intermediate cross-connect, main distribution frame, and main cross-connect are incomplete descriptions of the rooms’ purposes because modern systems require the housing of electronic gear in addition to the cross-connect frames, main or intermediate.

10GBase-T Cat.6A Currently Defined in ANSI/TIA/EIA-568-B.2-10

Written by Julianus Yu

The latest standard from the TIA for enhanced performance standards for twisted pair cable systems was defined in February 2008 in ANSI/TIA/EIA-568-B.2-10. Category 6a (or Augmented Category 6) is defined at frequencies up to 500 MHz—twice that of Cat 6. Category 6a performs at improved specifications, particularly in the area of Alien Cross-talk (AXT) as compared to Cat6 UTP which exhibited high alien noise in high frequencies.

The global cabling standard ISO/IEC 11801 will soon be extended by the addition of amendment 2. This amendment defines new specifications for Cat. 6A components and Class EA permanent links. These new global Cat. 6A / Class EA specifications require a new generation of connecting hardware offering far superior performance compared to the existing products which are based on the American TIA standard (Look at Service>Product>Copper twisted pair Product..for new connector support Cat.6a).