 What is voice and data cabling? Data cabling and voice cabling are one of the most important components of any business, because of its potential to connect an office to the outside world. For this reason, you could have tons of high quality equipment, but it would mean nothing, if you were unable to network all of it together cohesively. The advantage of installing a pre-designed structured cabling system, is that all the outlets can be used for a multiple of purposes. Thus, for the current layout and for future layouts, and many different types of technology. By installing a structured cabling system, you only need to upgrade your technology. Consequently you could still use the existing data cabling. The cabling itself is more complicated to put in, than just drilling holes and cutting cables to attach computers to printers. To begin with professionally installed data cabling, involves networking your PC, telephone, printer and fax machine to each other. Wi-Fi may be a staple of our day to day lives, but structured cabling is overall much faster and reliable. Furthermore, it is necessary regardless if you want to connect your office to the outside world. Upgrading from Analog Systems Legacy Analog Systems are still in place in many offices. However, companies are finally starting to upgrade, in order to better network together phones and computers over digital systems. Voice cabling for VoIP, voice over internet protocol, phone systems are becoming the gold standard for offices. As a result they allow for more portability. Thus as a result, structured cabling is rapidly being adopted. There are numerous benefits to VoIP systems, some of which are shown below. It is easier to install and maintain. VoIP systems are much more scalable. There are many more call features. Employees can receive and make calls, wherever they go. It is possible to future-proof your system, so that you can employ past cabling systems. Furthermore, you can strategically update these systems to meet all your potential needs in the future. This results in much cheaper expenses. At the same time, you would require someone with higher expertise, to consult you on the best way of executing this sort of an upgrade. Investing in voice and data cabling. The first consideration is to see if your existing structured cabling is suitable for a VoIP phone system. VoIP requires a quality of service and therefore, has to be transmitted over data cabling rather than legacy voice cabling. In addition the old style BT wiring to individual outlets, is not suitable or usable for VoIP. Furthermore, the presence of data cabling is not a guarantee that it is suitable for voice transmission. This will depend on the quality of the previous installation. Therefore, if you have full test results for these outlets, then you can be confident it will be suitable. However, without test results it is advisable to test these data cabling outlets, to ensure they are up to the required standard for consistent voice transmission. Often, when there are problems with the connectivity of the office, the problems lie with the cabling and infrastructure. Hully executed cabling, can result in interference, which can be an echo on the cable, interference from other cables or outside electrical noises such as power, lighting and many other sources. To this end your company should make sure not to cut corners with cabling solutions. In summary, investing in your cabling is always an intelligent move. In particular, it begins with testing your infrastructure to see what your current capabilities are. Of course, voice cabling professionals have the necessary equipment to do this. In addition, they are able to provide you with a printout of your cabling specs, for future reference. What are the different types of voice data cabling? For the most part in analog legacy telephone systems, the cabling would be a phone carrier cable such as a CW1308 cable. Generally this cable would have from 2 to 200 plus cores but wouldn't be twisted like a modern data cable. Nonetheless, it would be suitable for analog voice, but not suitable for data voice systems such as VoIP. Indeed, structured cabling outlets would be required for VoIP. Moreover, as most current phone systems don't exceed one gigabit speeds, a CAT 5E cable is acceptable for data transmission. However CAT 6 and CAT 6A are recommended in new buildings for structured cabling installations. Furthermore, CAT 6A is recommended as a minimum to future proof for 10 gigabit transmission infrastructure. The consideration is although I need to install cabling for today's technology, do I allow for future systems and install the best cabling system I can? For data cabling comparison chart, CAT 5 versus CAT 6 versus CAT 7. Please see the following chart to compare copper cabling standards. Additional advantages of structured cabling for VoIP. In addition to having the correct cabling for your VoIP system, the consideration to install a higher grade of structured cabling will allow smoother relocation and layouts within your offices. For this reason, the trend in many offices now is for 10 gig transmission to the computer, especially in media and design, where the bandwidth requirements are heavy. If your current data cabling is only suitable for one gigabit, because the phones only require that then a future upgrade of requirements for 10 gigabit will leave you with phones that can function but computers that cannot. Voice cabling for VoIP technology. In conclusion, VoIP phone systems are quickly becoming the gold standard for offices everywhere. Furthermore, although you may not realize it, your firm would greatly benefit from having the correct infrastructure capabilities. Thus, your business may be hampered from further growth if it doesn't have the cabling solutions required to enable continued scaling. For more information on how to get your data and voice cabling up to standard, don't hesitate to get in touch and speak to one of our experts. For a free quotation, please visit our website, nmcabling.co.uk, or call it 019 23 888 588.