Even though cables and wires are generally hidden behind walls, structured cabling solutions provide much needed benefits to businesses and data centers. Without it, the system is put at risk, especially during maintenance. Some of the benefits of structured cabling include: 

Efficiency:   

Whenever the time comes to make moves or additions to the telecom infrastructure, sorting out poorly organized wires which are tangled inside the wall will slow the process considerably. Structured cabling standards help organizations install wiring in a way that prevents these messy tangles by keeping the whole wiring infrastructure organized. This results in lower downtimes and less room for human error.

Redundancy:   

A well-structured telecommunications infrastructure allows for redundant operations within the cabling. This improves the overall dependability and accessibility of the system, especially during maintenance. If one cable is compromised, the easily implemented redundant wiring can keep communications going while repairs are made.

Future usability:   

With the constant advances in telecommunications technology, it is important to have a system that is forward-adaptable. Structured cabling solutions enable just that, making updates easy to implement with minimal risk to the infrastructure. This makes structured cabling a good investment when it comes to preparing for the future, whether that involves updating a current data center or designing a new data center

Flexibility:   

It all comes down to flexibility. Moves, additions, and changes to the infrastructure can be implemented quickly without disorganized wires getting in the way. This decreases the odds of human error during repairs and changes, thus allowing for better use of IT funds and company time.

Structured cabling services are available to help businesses improve their IT infrastructure. These services allow businesses to increase the overall efficiency of their telecommunications tech, making it a valuable investment with high ROI potential.

Your IT team plays a crucial role in the operations of your company. The advancement of technology in addition to the need to provide high quality services and the expectations of your customers has pushed IT to the forefront.

Chances are as a small business, you are not in the position to hire full-time IT employees in the first place. This is why remote technical support services might be the best fit for your company.

Remote access is the ability to gain entry to computer network or individual device from an external computer. It is invaluable when it comes to remote technical support and computer support for your small business. Nearly any computer issue can be resolved via remote IT support including scanning for malware, installing drivers, upgrading business applications and software, and removing computer viruses.

Here are the top benefits of remote IT support for a small business:

Increased Response Time 

Remote technical support can be provided as soon as someone answers your phone call. This is a significant cut in response time compared to waiting for a technician to visit your office. If you work with a managed IT services provider, they will always be support agents available to service your network and computers on demand.

Minimized Cost 

Remote computer support from managed IT service providers are typically able to assist you without tacking on additional costs that come with an on-site visit. Since it doesn’t cost the company as much, they extend those savings on to the customer resulting in a lower cost.

Focus on Business 

As a SMB owner, your goal is to grow your company. But if you are worrying about your IT, which is a very tedious and time-consuming task, you are in turn sacrificing your company’s growth. By getting the remote IT support for your small business, you alleviate any concerns and are put at ease knowing that any problem that arises will be taken care of.

Increased Productivity 

Are you or your employees being distracted with IT issues, instead of focusing on their primary roles? This can substantially reduce the rate of your business’ productivity. With remote technical support services, you can speed up IT solutions, reduce downtime and allow your staff to be more productive.

Access to Expertise 

As a small business, your IT requirements are not a full-time job. This means that you would have to be heavily dependent on emergency support in order to guarantee expertise, which can be costly. But with outsourcing, this isn’t the case. You can get in contact with your remote IT technician as often as you need. Your remote IT support teams will always be on hand to monitor your servers.

Access to Latest Technology 

Technology is always evolving, so how are you to know about every new product, software upgrade or app that can benefit your operations? Your remote IT support provider will be up to date on all of these measures so your company will always have the latest technology.

After Hours Service

As long as your computers are on—and the permission to grant your managed IT service provider access to your computers and/or network— procedures such as upgrades and troubleshooting can be done at any point in the day. This includes after business hours.

Proactive System Maintenance 

A managed IT service provider will always be on the lookout for problems. More often than not, providers offer monitoring on a 24/7 basis, allowing problems to be identified and fixed before they have a change to affect your business.

Are you looking for remote IT support for your small business? 

Contact us today to see how we can help.

When installing the network cable, which one do you prefer – copper cable or fiber optic cable? Let’s break it down and make it simple…

Both copper and what is essentially glass, or fiber optics, have their advantages and unique characteristics. Copper has already existed in many places and it is cheap in network devices connection. However, with the dramatic reduction of cost of optical deployment, the future-proof fiber optic cable shows more advantages over copper and has a better prospect in the future market.

We are presenting five reasons for the choice in fiber rather than copper cable from cost, bandwidth, transmission speed and distance, durability and security.

1. COST

A few years ago, the overall price of fiber cable was nearly twice that of copper, but now the price between fiber and copper has narrowed and fiber components and hardware have steadily decreased.

Let’s start with the general premise that electrical power transmission over copper is cheaper than laser power transmission over fiber – because it has been up until this point – though this is changing fast. Most people overlook the cost of the wiring closet in copper networks – and they shouldn’t. Let’s not forget, a standard wiring closet includes the costs of conditioned UPS (Uninterruptible Power Source) power, data ground, HAVC (Hybrid Automatic Voltage Control) and floor space.

These integral costs generally exceed the extra cost of fiber equipment in a centralized fiber architecture, as well as take up significantly more working space (which is often limited). So, an all-fiber LAN (Local Area Network) is really more economical and space-efficient than a copper-based networking environment for new construction and major renovations.

2. BANDWIDTH

Although copper is perfectly adequate for a voice signal, it has very limited bandwidth – while fiber provides standardized performance up to 10 Gbps and beyond.

Fiber links provide over 1,000 times as much bandwidth as copper and can travel more than 100 times further as well. A typical bandwidth-distance product for multi-mode fiber is 500 MHz/km, so a 500 meter cable can transmit 1 GHz. While twisted pair optimized for high data rates (Cat 6) can transmit 500 MHz over only 100 meters. In addition, the signal loss over 500 meters in fiber is negligible, but copper has very high loss at high frequencies.

3. TRANSMISSION SPEED AND DISTANCE

Fiber optic versus copper transmission can be viewed as the speed of photons versus the speed of electrons. Photons travel at the speed of light, whereas electrons used in copper travels at less than one percent of the speed of light. Although fiber optic cables do not reach the speed of light, they are only about 31% slower. So you can see that there is a huge inherent speed difference between fiber and copper. In addition, fiber does not have the 100 meter distance limitation which is inherent in unshielded twisted pair copper without a booster. Therefore, distance can range from 550 meters for 10 Gbps multi-mode and up to 40 kilometers for single-mode cable.

4. RELIABILITY

Fiber optic cable is much less susceptible to various environmental factors than copper cable. For example, copper will experience a great deal of degradation in quality over a distance of two kilometers, using fiber optic cable over the same distance can provide extremely reliable data transmission. What’s more, fiber is also immune to several environmental factors such as temperature and electro-magnetic fluctuations – copper cannot say the same – you can deploy fiber cable next to industrial equipment without worry. Also, like the transatlantic cable connecting the U.S. with Europe and beyond, fiber can be submerged in water.

5. SECURITY

Since optical fiber does not transmit electricity, it does not radiate signals and cannot be tapped – copper does use electricity and is susceptible to be tapped, which can cause the entire system to fail. A broken or damaged optical fiber can be detected extremely quickly by using a number of monitoring techniques including monitoring the actual power transmission or the transmission of a pilot signal. On the other hand, copper cable carrying a current can short-out completely or even cause a fire if it is damaged, old or worn without such efficient monitoring techniques.

CONCLUSION - AND THE WINNER IS...?

The advent of optical cable with its ever-reducing cost, increased bandwidth, extremely high speed and long transmission distance, excellent reliability and perfect security, has replaced copper in every aspect of network transmission and reception. Fiber optic cable has become one of the most popular mediums for both innovative cabling installations and upgrades, including backbone, horizontal, and even desktop applications. And with the steadily lowering cost and intrinsic improvements made seeminly daily in fiber optic connectivity, fiber construction will become more convenient and cost-effective. It’s only a matter of time before fiber optics completely replaces copper cable in both long and short-haul networking.