The six million dollar cable

zoom

HUGHES: If you can get everything talking to everything, managed from a single point, you need to look at connectivity as a whole.

zoom

WAITE: The fact that networks or components are certified up to a certain standard is not always a guarantee.

Businesses and organisations that don't take a more forensic approach to their physical infrastructure planning run considerable risks.

The growing complexity of network architecture - more than 96 million network nodes were installed worldwide in 2005, according to IMS Research - leaves it vulnerable to faults, raising the spectres of downtime and poor mean-time-to-repair rates.

Infonetics Research recently calculated that in the US, the average annual cost of downtime could range from $20,000 per hour for retails services to $200,000 per hour for financial services.

A more coherent strategic approach to infrastructure planning - the UPI ideal - would enable better fault detection rates and faster fault diagnosis according to research outfit Frost & Sullivan.

Alistair Waite, head of TrueNet product management at network infrastructure vendor ADC Krone, says too many IT managers focus on active equipment at the expense of the physical connection - and with the rise of VOIP, this can have serious implications for the quality of service experienced by end-users.

"Inferior cable quality, low quality connectors, wall outlets, patch panels or even patch cables can all have a detrimental effect on the integrity of a network," he says.

"Any cabling solution is susceptible to interference and losses in connectors and outlets. This susceptibility varies significantly from solution to solution. The problem is that poor quality components are often not visually distinguishable from high quality ones.

"Also the fact that networks or components are certified up to a certain standard is not always a guarantee. A connection may just pass during installation - but a change in operating conditions such as outside interference from radio frequency sources and ageing may cause the connection to fall outside the minimum specifications. In some cases, the impact may be so severe that a connection may completely fail and research has shown that up to 70% of all network downtimes can be attributed to cabling issues," he adds.

According to Eugene Botes, technical director for Middle East and India at passive cabling supplier Reichle & De-Massari, infrastructure trends are also increasingly driven by green issues, a common theme at industry events across the region.

"Naturally green and smart buildings rely on a common ITS system that will help to make them ‘green', ‘smart' and ‘intelligent'," he says. "Consultants, architects and developers will seriously consider any and all technologies that will help reduce the carbon footprint of buildings here."

Botes, who is also chairman of BICSI Middle East and Africa district, says that with most new installations in the region now being for new projects, the trend is rapidly moving towards installing as much of the latest cabling technology as possible.

"Category 5e is a ‘dying-to-dead' breed here," he says, "with category 6 taking 90% of the market. In terms of 10Gbps cabling systems on copper, this is still largely restricted to datacentres only.

And maybe not surprisingly, with fears of alien crosstalk [the electromagnetic noise that can occur when two or more signal-carrying cables run side by side], we are seeing more shielded cabling systems deployed in future datacentres.

"The two service providers in the UAE are taking major steps forward in ensuring that the metropolitan area networks will support future Triple Play [high speed Internet access, television and telephone] demand. All new developments now rely solely on FTTX [deep fibre] networks, and large rollouts of GPON networks over the next few years," he continues.

But Botes also broadly agrees with David Hughes' view that more needs to be done to persuade infrastructure customers that the physical layer is as important as strategic systems and platforms that it works in conjuction with.

"The one area that is of great concern in the Middle East is the lack of real skills in many sectors," he says. "The ITS industry is under huge pressure as the quality of the people involved with these installations just cannot be compared to more mature markets. Training is absolutely vital and companies like Cnet Training will play a huge role in filling this gap.

"Yet, the average hands-on type technician (who speaks very little English, too) never gets to see the inside of a classroom, and trainers need to rely on two or three levels higher in management, to pass on the skills," continues Botes.

"I am quite sure that most of the international consulting firms are facing ‘less than perfect' finishing and handover skills that give them some sleepless nights. It is just a matter of ‘The system works so we should leave it alone,' rather than taking real pride and effort to ensure that you have a quality system that will work at better margins over a long period of time," he concludes.

Print | Email | Discuss this article

| Share |

READERS' COMMENTS

Click here to post a comment

Add your Comment All posts are sent to the administrator for review and are published only after approval. ArabianBusiness.com reserves the right to remove any comment at any time for any reason. Please keep your responses appropriate and on topic. Arabian Business would like to point out that only comments relevant to the story will be published. Any containing personal insults or inappropriate language will not be approved.
Name *
Remember me on this computer
Email *	(Your email address will not be published)
City
Country
Subject *
Comment *
Notify me of further comments
Enter the words above *
Please click post only once - your comment will not be published immediately.

MORE FROM ARABIANBUSINESS.COM