Nexans Cabling SolutionsOpinion Paper February 2015

Very high throughput Wi-Fi and the Internet of Things the impact on cabling system design

Can we have a little more? An increasing number of devices are coming onto the net: how do high-speed Wi-Fi and the Internet of Things (IoT) affect cabling infrastructure? In the late 1980s, we saw telephony and data, on discrete cabling systems, brought together over structured cabling. In recent years, we’ve seen a repeat of this convergence, and once again, it’s affecting previously separate, Facilities-owned systems. These include wireless access points, devices for energy management (e.g. lighting, power distribution, meters accessible by utilities), equipment for regulating environmental conditions (e.g. temperature, humidity), people management devices (e.g. access control, surveillance cameras, passive infrared detectors), time recording and attendance tracking, electronic control systems, audio-visual (AV) projectors, devices for personal information and alarms (e.g., paging, patient monitoring, nurse paging, child safety) and so on. Add emerging ‘very high throughput’ wireless and the Internet of Things (IoT) to this mix and suddenly some additional requirements and design challenges appear. Cabling designers and specifiers are faced with the challenge ensuring that cabling installed for these ‘Distributed Services’, as they are called by European and International Standards groups, will fulfill their designated function for more than a few years. The purpose of this article is to explain what this means, why it’s different from “ordinary” cabling and what thought processes need to be applied to ensure longevity of the installed system.

Why it’s different... Importantly, cabling for these distributed services may be constructed from the same components as traditional office cabling and is fundamentally no different at component level (cable, connectors and cords). The differences are related to the locations in which this cabling resides (and that does have some implications for the choice of components), the devices it interconnects and, vitally, WHEN the cabling is installed into the building. The latter is perhaps the biggest difference to traditional office cabling. Where and what? Well this type of cabling is mostly installed in ceiling voids and building core areas or, if you prefer, in the places where people aren’t usually accommodated. The key purpose is connecting ‘non-users’ devices, as listed above, to the network. For this reason, the designer/specifier should be aware that there might be considerations related to physical robustness of product closures and flammability rating. Why is the installation moment of the ‘Distributed Building Services’ is important? The type of wiring, at issue in this article is rather part of the shell and the later less equipment. When? This type of cabling is often part of ‘shell and core’ and not ‘fit-out’, so one of the challenges is that it might even be installed quite some time before ‘traditional’. Many of the places described above are unreachable after completion of the structural work on the building. Making a later upgrade would expensive and difficult. EN and ISO standards Both CENELEC and ISO have seen the importance of this type of cabling and CENELEC have already published EN 50173-6 to specify requirements for Distributed Building Services. ISO are in the process of splitting ISO/IEC 11801 into sub documents as CENELEC have done with the EN 50173 series. ISO/IEC 11801-6 (Distributed Buildings) will address the same subject matter and may be very similar to the present EN standard. Both documents promote a grid design (more on that below) and have the same performance recommendations.

Grid Design Both the EN 50173-6 and the draft of the ISO / IEC describe the concept of Service Area (s) covered by service outlets (SO) which are arranged in a honeycomb structure. The pre-defined in this structure connection points for service outlets can be used for connecting WLAN access points, IP cameras or building management equipment (sensors, etc.).

Internet of Things The term Internet of Things (IoT) describes a new generation of networked (or networkable) devices. The convergence discussed in the introduction of this article is really beginning to take off. The building of the (near) future will be full of devices that can communicate with each other and supervisor programmes to share and work with data. This communication may be via the Internet but in many buildings will be restricted to LAN connectivity. This is partly because of a shortage of unique IP addresses in the IPv4 scheme but mainly because of security concerns. IoT devices may be mobile in which case wireless connectivity makes sense or static and therefore hard-wired to a socket. In both cases it is the cabling for ‘Distributed Building Services’ that will ultimately provide the connection.

803.11ac - providing new minimum requirements in office cabling There are very few truly wireless networks and often the best wireless infrastructure has a really good wired backbone. Traditionally this wired backbone has been scaled to suit wireless connection speeds. In IEEE 802.11n networks a ~ 576MB/s data rate can be achieved with a 1Gb Ethernet backbone for which a simple Category 5e/Class D cabling systems would already be quite sufficient. This has also fits in nicely with the view that the connected ‘non-user’ devices transfer relatively low quantities of data and therefore a 10/100 Mb Ethernet service is more than adequate, leading to EN 50173-6 cabling being specified as Category 5e. Unfortunately this now appears to be inadequate... the first wave of IEEE 803.11ac WAPs are available and offer up to 1.3 Gb/s wireless connectivity which potentially means that the 1Gb Ethernet backbone is already a bottle neck. Consequently both the EN and ISO/IEC standards are recommending Category 6A cabling for WAP backbones allowing each node to be provided with a 10GbE backbone connection. Standards bodies have also realized this, so EN 50173-6 described above has only been specified as a minimum requirement for only one category of 5e cabling. Unfortunately, however, the first Wireless Access Point (WAP) available that support the standard IEEE803.11ac are already available, enabling wireless transmission of up to 1.3 Gb/s - this means that a 1Gb Ethernet backbone is already becoming a bottleneck! Consequently, both the EN and ISO / IEC standards recommend Category 6A cabling for WAP backbone, providing a 10GbE connection for each node. This makes Category 6A cabling the minimum requirement (!) for current applications. Summary The Internet of Things will drive an increase in the amount of Distributed Building Services cabling required in an installation. The requirements of high-speed wireless backbones require Category 6A components. Category 6A is also the new ‘de facto’ minimum requirement office cabling, and future-proof wiring means designing-in adequate reserve capacity! Author: Rob Cardigan, Senior Product Manager - Nexans Cabling Solutions

Nexans Cabling Solutions

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