Written by It is important to check that your office has a correctly working data cabling network, I would advise that is checked by a professional. This blog deals with some of the standards in cabling along with certification.
Environmental Problems with Cat5e, Cat6, and Cat6A Cable
Cable must be installed so that external factors do not influence the performance of the network. Problems can occur at the patch panel if not correctly punched down, at the wall plate jack and anywhere along the cable itself. Maybe an inadvertent kink is in the cable, or there is a snag in the cable as it was pulled through a tight space. Or maybe the data cable was run too close to a mains electric cable. Any one of these issues can degrade the performance of an individual cable.
There are two basic kinds of testing that is performed during the installation of cabling, continuity testing and certification.
Continuity Testing
Continuity Testing is a test to ensure that the wires in the connectors at the faceplate and at the patch panel are connected correctly. There are 4 pairs of wires and each wire is color-coded. So, as the technician is connecting everything, a standard sequence is required. If a wire is connected in the wrong order, the cable will fail. This is a basic wire-mapping test. If this test fails, the connector and wires are re-examined and re-terminated. It is important that all cables are tested for their continuity.
But the only way to insure and guarantee full speed to every cable is to do Certification Testing on each cable.
Certification
I would absolutely recommend that you have your Data Cabling properly Fluke tested. Certification Testing is a performance test that utilizes a precision device that sends a signal from one end of the cable to the other. This test is the only way to test the data-carrying capacity of each cable. For example, Cat6A cable is rated to run at 10G/sec. But if you have an issue, the cable will work but it might be running at a slower speed. It passes the continuity test but it’s not performing at 100%. Certification will find the fault, pin-pointed to its exact location so that our technician can fix it, retest it and fully certify it as 100% top-speed rated.
The Fluke tester is an expensive test device that certified cablers use to test and certify their cabling jobs. It costs about an extra £6 per cable to get everything tested and certified. But without this test, you can’t guarantee top speeds throughout your network. Most cabling projects have a useful lifespan of 15 – 20 years, this investment upfront is very cost-effective. It means you will have full speed to every device for the entire lifetime of your cabling infrastructure.
Certification includes a PDF report showing every cable and the test results.
If you would like us to help you with this please don’t hesitate to contact us, our engineer John would be happy to help!