Considerations To Future Proof Your Business Network Cabling Infrastructure

One of the most pertinent things for a business to get right is the technology that’s powering their communications. That’s the phone lines for inbound calls, outbound calls, broadband, bandwidth - everything you need to keep your business in efficient communication with your customers and clients.

To get the best network cable installations, you need to address the needs of your business, while thinking through your future needs with precision. What works this year, may not be adequate for you next year, or the year thereafter.

Things change, and you do not want to be altering the infrastructure by paying repeatedly for cabling jobs, whether it’s cat 5, 5e, or cat 6 cabling.

Before you hire a contractor, you should know about the initial assessment process to ensure that the next cable installation you have done will be sufficient, and superior to last for years to come.

Consider the following requirements for your network cabling needs

·         Your current needs

This is in line with your short and long term needs as obviously you want the best now, and not have to wait six months or longer to reap the benefits. Therefore, one of the first considerations is to analyse what your business needs right now.

Some things to consider are:

How many…

·         Workstations do you have?

·         Trunk lines do you require?

·         Telephony lines are currently operational, or idle?

And don’t forget…

·         How much bandwidth you need, or are currently paying for and not receiving the maximum speed available?

All the above are factors that go into helping your staff be as productive as possible. Your employees need to have the best of technology to perform their duties fast, effective and efficiently, allowing them to get more done in less time.

For that to happen, the data cabling requirements need to be addressed so that your network is delivering peak performance consistently, allowing staff to get the job done.

·         Future proofing

After the current needs are identified, it’s then time to address your future requirements. What you need now may not, or probably will not be what you need a year from now, or even a few years down the line.

Businesses change, and so too do the industries the business operate in. Technology advances and demands often become stronger.

As your business evolves, you’re going to have new clients coming to your company, the longer you’re in business. The more people you do business with (both customers and clients), the more reliance there will be on your network. You need it to live up to its expectation and continually deliver at peak performance.

When you’re considering an upgrade to your current voice and data cabling structure, you need a solution that ideally comes with minimum of maintenance costs, with the option to upscale the network for additional trunk lines, workstations, or any other hardware you need to include whenever the need arises.

The best cabling infrastructures that are convenient for now, as well as cost effective for additional upgrades, if the need arises are Cat 5, 5e and the Category 6 cabling network.

All of those allow for the fastest network speeds to be ascertained, enabling businesses with the option for teleconferencing, or even worldwide tele-seminar training sessions, ensuring all staff are up to speed on their training. Whatever technology you need to use for communication, is only possible when you have a powerful data network powering your business.

Cat 5 cabling and above are also beneficial for conducting meeting with clients anywhere in the world. When you're doing business, small, medium, or large, you shouldn't be restricted to local geographical locations.

The web makes it possible to conduct business on a global scale, but to do that you need to have the best network cabling structure in place to support expansion.

·         Protection from downtime

Technology is quite renowned for failing at the absolute worst of time. The truth of that is that it is preventable. The data structure and the components used in the installation can be susceptible to influential interference factors.

Some cables are terrible for picking up static, whereas others work to minimize the static interference that can bring your network speed to a grinding halt.

Ensure that any cabling installation that's being done is carefully thought out, with a thorough site analysis conducted to ascertain the best components that will minimize the risk of interference to your network.

It's the N.E.X.T prevention process - Eliminating the "near end cross talk."

There’s a number of ways to do that, and the only way to know how is to run a series of data cabling tests on your existing network and identify the trouble hotspots. This allows data cabling engineers to select the most appropriate components for optimum performance from an upgraded network cabling structure.