For Belden, the first major new product that came in 2006 was the 4^th generation wireless solution for triple play networks (data, voice, and video), with seamless mobility and extended bullet-proof security. Belden also introduced a very high-density wire management solution in January that enables IT managers to maintain their network in a more organized and professional manner. Siemon invests 7.5% of its gross sales back into R&D every year.

Plm Makes Heads Turn
In terms of technology, the Indian cabling market trends are at par with the global market and may, in some cases, even surpass international trends. With more and more ITeS installations, knowledge centers, BPOs with high number of MACs, and their need for tracking IT in real time, justified huge deployment of intelligent cabling or physical layer management (PLM), leading to a sizeable growth in adoption of this technology last year. Although it is still small in terms of number of deployments, intelligent cabling is finding wider acceptance.

The intelligent infrastructure management solutions allow IT managers to track MACs in real time while offering security, better asset management and RoI; high density connectivity management systems. Such solutions include factory terminated plug and play connectivity products, high-density cable management racks and accessories.

Intelligent cabling is attractive as it promises to reduce the cost of network ownership by solving issues like unplanned downtime, inefficient manual moves, adds and changes, redundant ports, inaccurate records etc. It increases network management efficiency and network security considerably.

The Power over Ethernet (PoE) technology, though nascent at present, is set to take off in a big way, especially in areas where traditional cabling is difficult to deploy. These find applications in wireless environments for powering WAPs, remote surveillance cameras, etc. Currently, leading vendors including Tyco, Systimax, ADC Krone, and Molex are offering PoE over mid-span that is largely preferred for existing installations and few end-span solutions for new installations.

10GE, Yet to Grow
With the recent ratification of IEEE 802.3an 10 Gigabit Ethernet standards, Category6A started gaining market acceptance. Cat6A can support 10GE for the full channel distance. Initial deployments for Cat6A were in data centers but now it is being considered for horizontal cabling as well.

Apart from supporting bandwidth intensive applications, these systems have been successfully deployed for 10G applications where bandwidth is not a constraint. In India these are used more widely for backbone applications. However, the 10GE market is still in its infancy and is likely to mature in another 3-4 years.

India is predominantly a UTP market with 98% of the market preferring UTP solutions, especially on the horizontal side. The absorption of shielded products is low by volume. UTP products are preferred for business solutions and command over 90% of the market. Shielded products have so far been used mostly in noisy environments (high EMI, RFI, etc).

However, there may be an increase in demand for shielded products for the 10G system. Shielded systems are standards complaint that ensure 10G performance, reduced alien cross-talk, have higher data rate capability and bandwidth of 625 MHz to cover all encoding schemes proposed by IEEE.

Copper Shining On
Today, both fiber and copper have major advances in bandwidth capability to support the next generation of LANs at 10G. Steep copper prices have not spoilt the party as it continues to be the popular choice for cabling. On the other hand choosing between copper and fiber-optic solutions is sometimes difficult, as distance, cost, required bandwidth, and specialized expertise need to be considered.

Although copper cable is currently more popular and much more predominant in structured cabling systems and networks, fiber is quickly gaining momentum. Fiber-optic cable is favored for applications that need high bandwidth, long distances, and complete immunity to electrical interference.

Fiber is ideal for high data-rate systems such as Gigabit Ethernet, FDDI, multimedia, ATM, SONET, fiber channel, or any other network that requires the transfer of large, bandwidth-consuming data files, particularly over long distances. A common application for fiber optic cable is as a network backbone, where huge amounts of data are transmitted.

Cat7 is the only cabling standard in copper that supports high-speed data transfers. But there is one limitation in Cat 7 over fiber. With fiber you can connect two end-points within a distance of 45 km, but while using copper you can go only up to 100 meters. So, if you are planning to build a MAN, then there is no option other than going for fiber.

Multimode fiber has advanced to new levels to support laser-based systems where as the industry is developing twisted pair cabling that will provide at least a three-fold increase in bandwidth, but with limitation on distance.

Fiber-optic is the dominant type of cable for connecting separate buildings on campuses and connecting floor distributors to building distributors. Because of its high cost on the LAN equipment side it has been limited to the backbones. If we compare the cost of a fiber port on the active equipment and that of Gigabit Copper port on the active equipment, the fiber is almost 6 times higher.

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