Network Communications News (NCN) May 2016 | Page 28

S P E C I A L F E AT U R E

copper cabling systems

Copper has been the number
one choice for over 60 years.

Past, present, future
Nick Beer of Dynamode looks back at the past technologies that helped shape
modern copper cabling systems and discusses copper’s long term future.

C

alling the data industry,
especially the copper cabling
industry, unpredictable is an
understatement. Working
in the data communications
industry for over 25 years, I can
remember when there was talk
that almost all networks, especially the
larger corporate networks, would be
replaced with fibre optics, end to end,
from computer or workstation, straight
to the gigabit switch itself.

Copper past and present
Although in larger (and bigger budget)
installations this may be the case,
copper cabling systems are still very
much the dominant transmission media

for almost every network out there.
Fibre has never replaced it completely,
only being used when non-metallic
media is needed or if longer cable
lengths are needed – which exceed the
design limit of an Ethernet network.
It’s not just the humble copper systems
that have been around for a long time,
but also the protocols that run over the
network itself. Take TCP/IP, Ethernet
and the CSMA/CD design infrastructure
which has been around since the early
1970s, if not before, in the case of TCP/
IP, courtesy of DARPA.
The introduction of higher
speed copper cabling systems really
comes down to the high bandwidth
(frequencies) it can sustain, without
reducing adjacent conductor

interference, crosstalk, amongst other
parameters that most installer test
analysers are able to quantify. Of
course, Category 5 was superseded
by Category 5e (enhanced), and this
has been in mainstream production
for 18 years or so, and, with our
customers at least, is by far the
most popular copper category.
Compression of data seems to be the
de-facto method of allowing lower
performing copper systems, such as
Category 5e, to remain the mainstay
with many installers. Ethernet switches
themselves, the gigabit interface
adaptors on workstations and their
paired servers are allowing gigabit,
even multi-gigabit data transfers over
this older copper system.

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21/04/2016 17:18