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| While
the walls were open, Steve Hayes installed structured
wiring in the Watertown
House. |
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elcome to the Information Age,
where your television is digital, your stereo follows you from
room to room, and the lights are cued as you pull in the
driveway. Well, we're not there yet. But we're close, and if
you're considering home networking, High Definition Television
(HDTV), or any of a number of other digital products and
services, you need to tune into the new buzz in the electronics
industry: structured wiring. This bundle may look like a tangle
of copper wire and spun glass cables but what it represents is
bandwidth. Structured wiring—a term that has migrated from the
computer world into the world of home electronics—can feed
your home's ever-growing need for information-carrying capacity.
Before you know it, you'll be able to connect your laptop to
your stove top but in order to take advantage of these
innovations, you'll have to start thinking about wiring now.
The
"bundle" consists of several different types
of wiring to accommodate—and anticipate—your
communications needs.
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In the good old days of the 1990s, most signals coming into your
home were in the form of analog waves. Today most signals are
currently sent in a digital form or will be shortly. Digital
transmission is the same language that a computer uses to talk
to a printer. Given that all electronics are becoming little
computers, all of these pieces of equipment are beginning to
talk digitally to each other. Once the digital language becomes
standard, then the discussion will quickly turn to speed and
that is where structured wiring comes in handy.
Specifically, a structured wire "bundle" consists
of two RG6-Quad shield coaxial cables, two multi-mode fiber
optic lines and two Category 5 or 5E or 5plus communication
cables. The coaxial cable is the wire that connects our VCR to
the television and can carry a variety of digital signals. HDTV
and cable modems currently use this wire in your home. Why two
of these to each location? To allow information to flow both in
and out of your home, for additional information-carrying
capacity if needed. The fiber optic lines are actually the
coolest "wires" in the bundle. They provide ultra-wide
bandwidth (meaning lots of digital stuff can move very quickly)
and are more reliable than copper. You don't see a lot of
consumer electronics communicating via fiber optic, but as fiber
optic prices go down, their popularity will increase. In truth
most media systems technologists would prefer that all digital
communication happen via fiber; it makes everything work more
reliably. The Category 5 communication cable is used for your
telephone, fax and computer hookups. A lot of tomorrow's
technology will use this wire since it's already in many of our
homes.
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All
of the wires connect to a central hub that recalls an
old telephone switchboard.
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Structured wiring radiates from a central hub in a star pattern
through your home's walls so that each outlet or jack has its
own run of cable. (The National Electric Code (NEC) requires
that it be installed at least six inches away from the
electrical wiring already in the walls.) If you are building or
renovating, wire your home for the future while the walls are
open. Remember: wires are cheap but pulling wires through a
finished house is expensive. With that as a motto, have your
installer run lots of wires to lots of locations, even if you're
not ready to use them all yet. Better yet, have your installer
install a metal conduit through which future cables can be
snaked without ripping down walls. The half-life of modern
technology is ever shrinking, so the best you can do is think
ahead.
Wall
plates have multiple connections. |
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