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The Concept of Structured Cabling

Back in the early 1980s there was great variety in the types of cabling used for data networking in the commercial arena: various coaxial cables for various IBM mainframe systems, different coaxial cables for Ethernet, and other cable types for other data networking technologies. For voice, Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP) cable was used. This excess of competing cabling technologies caused great aggravation, as new and different cables were constantly being pulled through the office to support new computing and networking equipment (which was changing rapidly). And, of course, each cable type had its own unique connector. IBM was first to use the term "Structured Cabling" in 1984 as they introduced their 150-ohm Shielded Twisted Pair (STP) cable and promised that it would support their IBM mainframe-to-terminal network connections, even as their mainframes evolved in the future, as well as Token Ring LAN connectivity. But they applied the term to their new, proprietary STP cable which merely addressed IBM networking requirements.

Into this chaos, AT&T Network Systems proposed a new philosophy around the end of 1984. Instead of pulling a different proprietary cable type for each networking technology use one cable type, 100-ohm UTP, for every networking technology Then use various adapters, as needed, to connect the 4-pair UTP to networking devices, whether they be Ethernet, Token Ring, IBM 3270, plain old telephone service, or whatever. This is the basis for the concept of Structured Cabling.

The concept of Structured Cabling is all about proofing the cabling for future technologies by implementing flexibility and standardization in the cabling. The initiative was a great success, and today it is generally accepted practice to cable commercial office buildings in the Canada and the US with UTP. The need to re-cable every few years has been greatly reduced, thanks to this structured cabling approach. 

    

 

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