Your computer and communications network is a vital investment so it’s helpful to have an understanding of some terms, procedures, and the inevitable list of acronyms that constitute the numerous sockets, cables, conduits, trays, and other items you will encounter in the struggle to make everything fit together into a functioning office, data center, or call room. Even if a contracting company is doing the job you will still be the one to flip a switch and hope the light comes on, so knowing how the cabling is laid out and an understanding of the terms will assist you in discussing problems when they come up. Without proper management of the cabling situation there is the potential for impediment of operations during the confusion.
There needs to be an entrance facility for underground cable coming into the building; from there the backbone cable runs into the main equipment room, telecommunications closets, and main terminal space. This is the entrance wiring closet, from where the cable can run along accesses called backbone raceways to the intermediate wiring closets containing the Intermediate Distribution Frames. The Backbone Cabling System Structure includes patch cords or jumpers used for backbone-to-backbone cross-connections. An Intermediate Distribution Frame (IDF) cross-connects backbone cable to the individual line circuits.
Many terms such as Main Distribution Frame and Intermediate Distribution Frame come from the Telephony sector that shares the same basic cable technologies with Computer communications transfer. The same industry standards for hardware and safety precautions are followed. As the name implies, the Intermediate Distribution Frame on each floor connects the individual user devices to the Main Distribution Frame which in turn is the connection to the phone company.
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