FAQ about communications cabling

I'm responsible for our company's voice and data cabling. What are my options?

Cabling options are wide-ranging and diverse. Depending on your company's voice and data needs, the choices are numerous. There are 6
parts to a company's structured cabling system:

1. The building entrance or MPOE.
2. The equipment / server room.
3. Backbone cabling.
4. The telecommunications closet.
5. Horizontal cabling.
6. Work area / end user.

Td communications can help you in all of these areas. In a typical project, we'll install a feeder cable to the MPOE and tie cables or fiber to
the server room. For most of our customers, we install at least 2 Category 5e cables for network and/or VoIP use to each user. In the rapidly
changing telecommunications industry, Category 5e has become the cable of choice to accommodate new cabling transmission standards,
including Gigabit Ethernet. We still install Category 3 voice cables and normally split that cable into 2 RJ11 jacks for flexibility.

What products and services do you offer?

We provide everything needed for your complete cabling infrastructure. This includes the cable, the jacks, the patch panels and the voice
termination field. We also provide and install 2 post racks, server cabinets, cable sleeves and cable ladder for wiring closets and server
rooms. We will do all the required seismic bracing on the racks that we install. We also specialize in data center and colocation wiring.
More

What about fiber?

At most organizations, a very large percentage of business is dependent on the network. In the last 10 years, network traffic has increased
tremendously. With users sending and receiving graphics-heavy files and multimedia applications, fiber is playing a larger role in many
networks. We install, terminate and test multi-mode and single-mode fiber. This includes indoor and outside plant fiber and laser-optimized
fiber. We've kept abreast of advances in the manufacture, termination and testing standards of fiber optic cable.
More about fiber.

How do we extend our dial tone, PRI and T-1 circuits?

Along with the horizontal cabling, we install the cables, called "feeders", from your building's MPOE (minimum point of entry) into your PBX
or server room. These cables are usually Category 3 rated and come in increments of 25 pairs, the most common being 100 pair. We also
install 75 Ohm coax to extend DS3 circuits.

What type of testing do you do? Do you provide certification reports?

We scan every single cable we install. We use scanners made by Fluke (the best on the market in our humble opinion). We utilize the latest
DTX scanners and the DTX fiber modules that can test the newest 10gig standard. These scanners are calibrated annually and updated to
assure that the latest standards are utilized. Certification reports are available on disk or in binder form. For voice cables we use a standard
pair scanner which tests for opens, shorts and reversed pairs.
Learn more about testing.

Will I receive an As Built Drawing?

An "As-Built" drawing is a floor-plan showing the finished job and the locations and numbers of the comminications drops. This is a very
usefull tool for your IT team. Td Communications will provide a CAD cabling floor-plan, provided we can obtain a current background. We
use the latest versions of AutoCAD and plot in color. We then provide our customers with a laminated and an electronic version of the
drawing.

We've never done business with Td Communications before. What our your
credentials?

That's a great question! First of all, we are contractors, licensed by the State of California. We are also bonded by the State. We carry full
liability insurance and Workman's Comp. We have done business with some of the most prestigious company's in the Silicon Valley including
Yahoo!, Thoratec and Lucas Films. We are just as proud of some of our smaller, lesser-known clients whom we have been able to help
expand (see our Client List). In a time when cabling installation errors account for over 50% of network problems, we are extremely proud of
the fact that our call-back rate for cabling repairs is almost non-existent. Our technicians are well trained and we take great care to complete
all jobs on time.
See our Client List.

At what point in time do I need to contact the cabling contractors?

One of the biggest mistakes we see made is contacting the cabling guys too late. Planning for your communications cabling should be done at
the same time that you plan for your electrical needs, your construction changes, and your modular furniture. We can assist you in the planning
of your cabling infrastructure, provided we are brought into the loop early in the planning process.

How can I make sure that the cabling I'm installing now will meet data transmission
requirements in the future?

This may sound a little technical, but I'll try to keep it as simple as I can. Since the first cabling standard was introduced in 1991 for
unshielded twisted pair (UTP), there has been a series of changes and updates. To keep up with ever increasing network speeds, new
transmission specifications have been promoted by the manufacturers and endorsed by the standards community. We've seen network
speeds increase from 10 Megabits/sec (10 million bits per second) in the 1980's to 10 Gigabit/sec (10 billion bits per second) today, all over
UTP.

Where to from hear? We could go on for many pages detailing the different discussions about future protocols and standards. Think of
bandwidth as lanes on a highway. Doubling the bandwidth is like adding twice the number of lanes to let traffic flow. The general difference
between Category 5e and Category 6 is in the transmission performance, and extension of the available bandwidth from 100 MHz for
category 5e to 200 MHz for category 6. We, therefore, recommend Category 6 cable for all new installations, allowing higher reliability for
current applications and higher data rates for future applications.

Got a question that you don't see listed here? Contact us.