Growing Adoption of Pre-terminated Fibre Optic Cables in Current Cabling Trends

The aim of modern IT-centric world is to target on having a firm grasp of prevailing cabling trends for flourishing technologies. In recent years, cabling advancements have been a cause of satisfaction for IT and datacentre managers when it comes to installation, usage and maintenance. Moreover, the upgradation and outfitting of datacentres or any other system has now become easier, with savings on both time and cost.

A research on future cabling market done in 2013 by BSRIA - a global market intelligence company, can be summarized as:

• The global market of structured cabling will reach about $8.3 billion by 2020. Of this total, cabling in datacentres is expected to account for $1.6 billion, while LAN cabling alone will contribute $6.7 billion.

• Companies are expected to spend more on LAN structured cabling for wiring IP camera, access points and access controls, building management systems and other equipment.

• Datacentre’s structured cabling will continue to move on utilizing fibre, whereas the smaller datacentres using copper wiring are likely to decrease with the increase in outsourcing and cloud services.

Many IT companies are determined to maximize project ROI in order to improve their commercial sector. They needed to make more sustainable and environmentally sound choices for cables having lower installation costs and requiring less installation time. Here is where pre-terminated fibre optic cable comes into picture. It has proved better results for mission-critical technology networks because it provides high performance and maximum system uptime over long term, without incurring high costs for system upgrades and network maintenance.

Traditionally, once a cabling installation plan is formulated and network topology is approved, installers need to haul large volumes of cables to be installed and terminate at the user’s site. This installation may take days, weeks or even months depending on the size of the project. If the system needs to be upgraded, the installers have to design their schedule in such a way that the network’s performance should not be affected. Furthermore, at the end of the installation process, the installers are left with discarded packaging, unused cabling and even other waste and scrap.

On the other hand, pre-terminated fibre optic cable needs more detailed analysis and planning process, requiring more time upfront to determine the current and future requirements of cabling and termination routes within the cabinets and along the cable trays. Once the plan is formulated, the required cable lengths for various areas are then manufactured by cable providers like Apollo Technology Pty Ltd, and tested to ensure they meet all applicable network standards.

The resulting cabling system is a rapidly deployable ‘plug and play’ system, as there is no need of on-site field termination, because these cables are bundled and pre-terminated at factory. They are ready to install upon arriving on site, without the need of special tools and field termination, leading to lower installation and ownership costs. Furthermore, these cables don’t leave any cable or connector scrap after the installation process is complete. Apollo technology makes pre-terminated cables to your exact specification with improved end-to-end attenuation and throughput. These cables have no termination errors because they have already been inspected for insertion loss and visual defects.

Because of the improved link loss budget, pre-terminated cables have various applications, for example LAN premise and campus applications that utilise pre-terminated cables for their inter-building and intra-building backbones. Also, datacentres deploy these cables in their main, horizontal and equipment distribution area trunk cables for Storage Area Network (SAN) applications requiring high density in limited space.

To conclude, pre-terminated fibre optic cables provide a greener approach and life cycle sustainability to datacentres and enterprise networks because they are economically feasible for a long-term investment. Although implementation of pre-terminated cables require more detailed pre-planning at the early stages, the overall cost/ benefit analysis favors their use.