Understanding Cabling

Back in 1984, the U.S. courts made several rulings that would forever change the face of
communications cabling. That was the year the Bell system, after a 10-year battle, agreed to
the Department of Justice’s decision to divest.

After the divestiture of AT&T, companies were left to find their own communications vendors
and cabling contractors. Not much was understood about cabling requirements back then.
Data speeds were slow, bandwidth requirements were minimal and the “baby bells” took
care of their own voice cabling.

But soon after, with the proliferation of new cabling schemes and connector interfaces, it
became apparent that the creation of a standards group was needed.

So the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the Telecommunications
Industry Association / Electronic Industry Alliance (TIA/EIA) were born. Their main focus
would be on commercial buildings and communications cabling.

By 1991 the first cabling standard was introduced. At that time, network cabling was in full
swing. We were seeing bandwidths over unshielded twisted pair cable up to 16 Mhz – low
compared to today’s bandwidth of over 200 Mhz, but that was 19 years ago which, as you
are probably aware, is an eternity in technology.

Learn more about Cabling Infrastructure.

Got a question? Contact us.