Local area networks in many existing office buildings are reaching their limits in terms of performance, according to R&M, a Switzerland-based cabling systems developer and provider.
Citing a study carried out by market research organization BSRIA, R&M notes that approximately 80% of the office buildings and functional buildings in western industrialized countries were built before 1990.
The structured cabling in these buildings also usually dates from when the buildings were built. At that time, the LAN was designed for a maximum transmission performance of 1 Gigabit Ethernet.
“If office networks are to remain usable for the next 20 years, they will require a performance of ten times this at 10 Gigabit Ethernet in future. This is in addition to robust protection against external interference, among other aspects,” commented Matthias Gerber, market manager for LAN Cabling at R&M.
Gerber gives four decisive factors which, from the point of view of R&M, make a generational change in structured office and building cabling unavoidable:
Data throughput: If a large number of computer workstations within a company have to quickly access virtual machines, cloud services and software, then an increase in IP traffic is inevitable. “And all at a scale that has never been seen before,” commented Gerber. For productive work to remain possible, the LAN requires greater performance and system reserves.
Latency: The current trend towards integrated communication with IP-based phone, conferencing and video services requires a latency-free, secure signal transmission. Bandwidth reserves are required in order to be able to ensure these special requirements are met in parallel with normal data transmission.
Wireless: Nowadays, every commercial building must support mobile communication and its high demand for bandwidth. This requires an increasingly denser network of access points. The many wireless LAN antennas have to be connected to a powerful cabling system. The next generation of wireless access points will require a 10 Gbit/s uplink,” explained Gerber.
Convergence: The local data network will also cover the needs of IP-based building automation in future. Standardized IP networks and Power over Ethernet are used to integrate virtually every building function as part of the Internet of Things (IoT). Intelligent building management also helps to increase safety and brings added comfort for building users.
“The Internet of Things with its soon-to-be 33 billion end devices – whether in intelligent buildings or smart cities – needs convergent network infrastructures in order to reach its full potential. Ubiquitous, robust LAN access points are needed,” Gerber said.