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WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY
Structured cabling considerations
While most data centres are prepared for current bandwidth demands and maintain up-to-date backbones , some enterprise networks are in danger of falling behind . Increased wireless traffic has already taxed many enterprise environments .
IEEE 802.11ac Wave 1 and Wave 2 standards , along with bring your own device ( BYOD ) policies , encourage increased Wi-Fi activity and place a significant strain on existing 1000BASE-T systems . And it ’ s not just businesses that are feeling the pressure to upgrade . Hospitals and schools are seeing significant jumps in data growth . Across the healthcare industry , there ’ s a huge push to support staff , patients and visitors with reliable wireless access .
High-speed Internet is also vital for supporting student education at all levels . Whether performing online research for papers , giving in-class presentations , or engaging in extracurricular learning , students need greater bandwidth for quick access to information in order to achieve their goals . Both hospitals and schools will fail to meet the growing demand for reliable network performance without the right cabling infrastructure in place .
2.5GBASE-T and 5GBASE-T Increased wireless demand has pushed network speed requirements beyond 1 Gb / s . To support faster data rates , upgrading to a Cat 6A infrastructure is inevitable . However , with more than 70 billion metres of Cat 5e and Cat 6 cable installed over the last 12 years , many facilities and IT managers are hesitant to spend the resources on a complete Cat 6A upgrade .
Both IEEE and TIA attempted to address this issue by developing standards for 2.5GBASE-T and 5GBASE-T . The recently released IEEE 802.3bz , TIA TSB-5021 , and ISO / IEC TR 11801-9904:2017 ( E ) specifications allow enterprise networks to swap out active gear and transmit 2.5 Gb / s and 5 Gb / s speeds over existing Cat 5e / Class D or Cat 6 / Class E cabling to extend the life of their current infrastructure .
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