Dowty Group Plc’s network equipment suppliers Case Communications Ltd yesterday officially launched a subsidiary company, Case Cabling, to market, install and franchise a European version of the AT&T Premises Distribution System-based unshielded twisted pair structured cabling system in the UK and Europe. The announcement also included an agreement with Watertown, Connecticut-based Siemon Company under which Case becomes the exclusive European distributor of Siemon’s range of home-grown cabling technology. Case has been involved in structured cabling for the last 10 months as a complementary business to its local area network products such as the Series 6000, and in that time has done around UKP1m of business in cabling; the decision to form a new company comes from the perceived need for its cabling operations to be totally vendor-independent, and accordingly, the new product, Communications Transport System Europe – CTSe – supports all major environments including IBM, DEC and Hewlett-Packard. Case recognises that the potential viability of CTSe in the European market owes a lot to AT&T’s efforts to pioneer the use of unshielded twisted pair in the US: AT&T assumed the monumental task of convincing the US market that UTP was capable of the same kind of speeds as the more expensive shielded twisted pair cable, in the face of what Case sees as a campaign of misinformation from IBM in favour of the latter, which used in the IBM Cabling System. Unshielded twisted pair has now gained an ever-growing band of converts in the US, and Case is convinced that it will be the future for cabling in the US and Europe, with shielded twisted pair being relegated to niche markets such as factory floor installations, where a greater level of robustness is required. CTSe conforms to the US standard proposed by the TIA, which is currently under review by the IEEE and ISO for use in Europe, and like other structured cabling systems, is based on the initially costly, but purportedly future-proof principal that all the cabling that a client is likely to need over a 15 year period is put in from day one – consequently, most of Case Cabling’s client’s will be companies in the process of moving into a new building or undergoing a major refurbishment, as well as property developers who realise that prospective tenants will demand a comprehensive cabling system as a prerequisite for moving in.
Backbone
For the backbone, Case will be working with either twisted pair copper or optical fibre, which then connects up to a resource and patch panel on each floor linking Ethernet and Token Ring networks, private branch exchanges, mainframes and other terminals. Most of the wiring on the horizontal will be copper still good for the vast majority of applications – although optical fibre can also be laid for future connection as and when required. CTSe comes with a cable management system, and a number cross-connections and intermediate connections to make it more resilient. Components are provided by Siemon, which also provides equipment in the US for Motorola, Northern Telecom for its IBDN system, ITT and others. The transmission rate of CTSe is put at 10Mbps to 16Mbps, although Case reckons its laboratories have developed some end technology that has achieved speeds of up to 40Mbps – this, however, will not be seen commercially for some time. In the UK, installation of CTSe will be carried out by Case Cabling itself, as well distributors that have obtained a franchise on it; on the continent, it will be installed entirely by these franchise-holders, each of whom must undergo a training programme first. According to figures released by the BSRIA Building Services Research and Information Association, the UK market for structured cabling is worth around UKP44m a year at the moment, with the total European market estimated at $175m – based on the premise that firms as small as 50 employees can make some use of structured cabling. If those figures are correct, Case Cabling, which for the moment is sharing the Watford, Hertfordshire home of its parent compa
ny, is likely to be a company with very impressive growth rates for the next few years.
