Structured Cabling is a standardized cabling system designed to carry voice, data and video signals in a commercial or residential environment. Structured cabling divides the entire infrastructure into manageable blocks and then attempts to integrate these blocks to produce the high-performance networks that we have now come to rely on. To the user, this means investment protection.

All cables originating from the different work locations are terminated on a passive centralized cross-connect in the network room. Simple labeling and coloring mechanisms provide for easy and quick identification of work outlets. Hence, it provides for a single point for all administrative and management requirements. Another underlying factor is management of change. It must be realized that system architectures keep changing as the system evolves. And the cabling architecture should be able to change with minimal inconvenience. The provision of a Central Administrative Panel provides the flexibility to make additions, moves, and changes. The changes can be facilitated with simple switch over of patch cords. Apart from this, structured cabling is also technology independent.

Installing standards-compliant structured cabling systems can eliminate downtime. Another important factor that needs to be taken into account is that the structured cabling system, though it outlives most other networking components, represents just five percent of the total network investment.

The advantages of structured cabling are:

• Consistency as A structured cabling systems means the same cabling systems for Data, voice and video.
• Support for multi-vendor equipment as A standard-based cable system will support applications and hardware even with mix & match vendors.
• Simplify moves/adds/changes as Structured cabling systems can support any changes within the systems.
• Simplify trouble shooting as With structured cabling systems, problems are less likely to down the entire network, easier to isolate and easier to fix.
• Support for future applications as Structured cabling system supports future applications like multimedia, video conferencing etc with little or no upgrade pain.