If you haven’t put much thought into your business network cabling, you might be surprised to find out how much your cabling structure can affect your day-to-day operations. If you don’t have the right cabling structure in place for your business, you might end up with a network that doesn’t meet your needs or perform as it should.
If you’ve been suffering from poor connectivity, spotty Wi-Fi coverage or slow download speeds, you may want to consider upgrading your current business network cabling structure. Keep reading for a look at how to choose the right structure.
What Is a Business Network Cabling Structure?
A cabling structure is an underlying infrastructure that supports your business’s IT network. Cabling is one of the main parts of the structure. Structured cabling systems in particular are effectively organizing all of your cabling and ensuring your network runs smoothly.
A data cabling company can design and install a cabling structure that will support your business now and in the future. The different cables that go into a cabling structure can vary based on your needs. This goes deeper than choosing whether or not to upgrade to fiber optic cabling. Certain kinds of cables ensure better performance than others on your network.
Ask These Questions to Choose a Cabling Structure
So, how do you know what kind of business network cabling structure will best serve your needs and that of your employees? Knowing your daily technological requirements is a good start, along with your current network usage. If you don’t know where to start, ask yourself these questions.
How Many People Use Your Network?
The kind of cabling structure you need can depend on how many people are using your network on a daily basis. Do you work in hospitality? If so, guests and visitors are probably using your network in addition to your staff. If you work in a large hospital or medical office, you may require extra support for things like security and medical equipment.
If you have a lot of people using your network, you may need to think about how quickly your network will need to scale to accommodate new users.
How Many Pieces of IT Equipment Do You Have Already?
If you have a network in place already at your business, you’ll need to account for them when you choose a cabling structure. Some cabling is designed for things like telecommunications and VoIP phone systems. But an issue can arise if your cabling is old, resulting in interference or degraded performance.
New technologies need an infrastructure that can support it, and as time goes on, your cabling structure will need to be upgraded. A good cabling structure can support your future needs and scale with your business.
Is Your Business Growing Rapidly?
If your business has growing pains, then you need a cabling structure that can see you through rapid growth. If you’re moving business locations, then it’s the perfect opportunity to evaluate your needs and upgrade your network.
Your business network is more than just Wi-Fi or an internet connection. Depending on your needs and their complexity, you may need to account for:
- New employees you hire
- Expanding your office space
- Adding new technology to your network
These are just a few examples of how your business network’s cabling can support your growth behind the scenes. Choosing a structure that can account for potential future growth is vital to keep your business on the right track.
Do You Have Special Technological Needs?
Some business networks have more needs than others. Data cabling and structured cabling systems can be extremely versatile, supporting everything from smart utilities and security to surveillance systems and more.
For larger properties like a hospital campus or even an apartment complex, you may want to work with an outside company that specializes in data cabling for your particular industry. This is especially significant for the medical field since heavy equipment can rely on the network for things like monitoring temperature, humidity and other small but important environmental factors. Your network needs to provide reliable support to all of those pieces of equipment plus your staff’s daily network usage and any visitors to your business or building.
Cabling Structures: More Than Wires
Having the answers to these questions can help you decide what kind of cabling structure you need to upgrade your business network. No matter what industry you’re in, the underlying cabling structure that connects your network should be reliable.
A cabling structure is a support system for your business network and your own success. Viewing your business holistically, your IT network plays an important role in making sure you can operate on a day-to-day basis. Having a cabling structure that can better enable you to make decisions isn’t just a “nice to have” business upgrade — it’s a necessity.