Three commonly used wiring systems in integrated wiring

The integrated wiring system is the infrastructure for the intelligent building to connect the "3A" system. Below, let's take a look at the detailed introduction of the three commonly used wiring systems.

ZR Cable integrated wiring

fiber optic system

Optical fiber is the best medium for information transmission. It not only has the incomparable advantages of copper cable system in terms of long-distance and high-speed transmission, but at the same time, unlike copper cable manufacturing, which is limited by the raw material—the rare resource of copper metal, the manufacture of optical fiber is not easy. Limited by raw material resources. In addition, compared with copper cables, the size of optical cables is smaller, and the network is not limited by the number of connectors in the link, and there is no need to consider the problems caused by electromagnetic interference. With the trend of "light in and copper out", optical fiber systems will play an increasingly important role in data centers.

Since the price of optical fiber port equipment is still expensive, several times that of copper cable equipment for the same application, this has become the main reason why the optical fiber system cannot completely replace the copper cable system. Secondly, optical fiber installation requires professional practitioners to use special tools to carry out, and the construction cost and requirements are relatively high. In addition, in the face of the emerging and high-profile PoE power over Ethernet technology, fiber optic systems cannot be supported.

For fiber optic systems in data centers, the general consensus in the industry is that OM3 laser-optimized fiber optic systems are recommended. This system can use VCSEL (Vertical Surface Laser Emitter) light source to support 10Gb/s transmission at 850nm wavelength, and the distance can reach 300 meters. In terms of upgrades, some manufacturers set out to go beyond the 10Gb/s standard and use coarse wavelength division multiplexing to transmit 40Gb/s.

copper system

Although copper cable systems are limited in transmission distance and the number of channel connectors compared to fiber optic systems, copper cable systems are the most familiar to all designers, installers and users. It can realize high-speed applications in a low-cost way, from 10/100/1000Base-T to 10GBase-T, copper cable systems can be well supported. In addition, unshielded systems can support PoE applications to power remote devices while transmitting data signals.

When the TIA issued the 942 standard in 2005, the standard for Category 6A was immature. Taking into account the market conditions at the time, in this standard, it is recommended to use Category 6 or above cables. Today, Category 6A is the most economical link configuration method to achieve 10Gb/s transmission requirements. The system provides 10 times the transmission capacity at a cost that is not twice as high as Category 6, so the cost per Gbps is lower. much more. Although Category 6 can also support 10Gb/s in short distances, its ability to suppress noise and transmission performance is far from 6A.

Although the existing 10G copper port network equipment on the market is expensive, with the mass production of equipment manufacturers and the maturity of the market, the price will naturally decrease, just like the original gigabit port equipment. It is worth noting that due to the high power required for 10G transmission, the previous transceivers even consume 10 to 15 watts of power per port, so the "low-power short-distance transmission mode" is specified in the 10GBASE-T standard. Power consumption per port is reduced to 4 watts. An important point is that only Category 6A or higher cables can support this mode at a distance of 30 meters.

shielded cable system

It goes without saying that the shielding system has a good ability to resist electromagnetic interference and prevent information leakage. For the Category 6A shielding system that supports 10 Gigabit transmission, the alien crosstalk test problem can be ignored, which will undoubtedly save a lot of test time. At present, the reason why the vast majority of domestic users consider using the shielding system is the consideration of information security. In addition, the shielding system can support higher bandwidth applications, up to 1.2GHz.

However, shielded cabling systems also have their developmental limitations. First of all, the acceptance of shielding systems is currently low on a global scale, and may only account for 5% of the entire copper cabling system market share. This means that designers and installers are relatively unfamiliar with it and require further training. To ensure the 360-degree continuous shielding effect of the shielding system, the shielding system must be properly installed and grounded, which is difficult and time-consuming to construct. In addition, due to the existence of the metal protective layer, when the shielding system is used to support the PoEPlus application, the heat generated by the cable cannot be dissipated, which will interfere with the performance to a certain extent.