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Founded in 1987, Intermedia Communications is a service provider dedicated to using next generation technologies to deliver integrated voice, data, and Internet communications to businesses nationwide. The company offers industry leading frame relay and ATM networking services, and high-speed Internet access.
Headquartered in Tampa, Florida, Intermedia was the first in the industry to provide money-back guarantees to their customers on availability. Intermedia prides itself at offering industry-leading guarantees for network availability, frame delivery, transit delay, and problem resolution.
With the explosion of broadband data applications and Internet-based communications throughout the 1990s, the company grew exponentially. Late in the fall of 1998, a decision was made to build a new corporate headquarters campus to include a network operations control center. The buildings would have the capabilities to house over 3000 employees. The campus was designed with six buildings having a total of 800,000 square feet.
Devere Archer, Senior Engineer – Cabling, at Intermedia, was given responsibility for the design and implementation of the networking infrastructure throughout the campus. He was a seasoned industry veteran and knew from experience he wanted several key elements. The first was a cabling infrastructure that was as flexible as it could possibly be. “My main objective was the ability to deal with employees moves, adds, and changes as easily as possible,” said Devere. “Intermedia has been one of the fastest growing companies in the nation; and as a result we have had to maintain an employee base to support our growth.
In addition, our system runs a 100-base T protocol today but must be capable of supporting a gigabit Ethernet protocol in the near future.”
Against this backdrop, Devere began his planning process. After doing some preliminary investigation into his options, he decided to utilize zone cabling and to run cable to various consolidation points before going out to the workstations. He felt this would simplify the many changes he anticipated making.
Part of his planning of course involved making a choice in terms of the cabling and connectivity manufacturers, as well as finding a qualified installer to install the products.
Although Devere planned to install category 5e, he wanted a system that would provide the maximum headroom possible over the required specification so that there was plenty of capacity as network demands grew. In terms of the structured cabling, Intermedia tested five leading vendors for performance. Devere chose Molex Premise Networks connectivity in conjunction with Belden Cable.
The combination provided the largest degree of headroom for PowerSum Next, Attenuation and Return Loss than any other competitors.
The next decision involved installation companies. The most important criteria were the size of the company, their reputation, the price estimated for the job, and the quoted time for job completion. Intermedia ultimately chose Custom Cable Industries, a 21 year old company based in Tampa.
Custom Cable had a full network design staff in place with the ability to make and/or modify cable assemblies for a particular customer’s application. The company was able to work with Intermedia to provide a unique solution for their needs. To make the network as flexible as possible, 50 to 70 consolidation points on each floor had been determined by Devere. To enable the installation to be done in the shortest amount of time possible, Devere, Barrett, and the design staff at Custom Cable led by Bruce Rankin, pre-connectorised two of the main components of the structured cable channel configuration. The first portion of the configuration would consist of Molex Premise Networks Multi-User Telecommunications Outlets with 24 DataGate™ 5e jacks pre-wired to four 6-pair cable bundles that would ultimately go back to the telecommunications closet. These MUTO/cable assemblies would
be precut according to the length between the closet and the space in the floor where the MUTO was to be located. This ranged from 50ft to 225 ft.
The second component of the channel (called the “whip” by Custom Cable) was a pre-connectorised 4 port USO II faceplate with four DataGate 5e jacks on one end and RJ45 patch plugs on the other end. These segments were made in just a couple of lengths (25ft and 45ft) because there was not as much variation in the lengths between the floor boxes and the workstations.
Because each workstation was to have two voice and two data outlets placed in a floor box at each workstation, each MUTO could handle six workstations with space for up to about 350 workstations in a typical three-floor building.
These pre-connectorised assemblies were then laid down in bundles under a raised floor and run back to the telecommunications closet. Each intermediate distribution closet had up to 5 racks and as many as twenty 48 port HD Patch 5e Patch Panels. The bundles from the MUTOs were run up to the patch panels, terminated, and then put into expandable tubing to keep them organized.
For the fibre backbone of each building, up to 12 pre-terminated Modlink Cassettes were used. These plug and play fibre systems, each having 12 SC fibre connections, were simply placed in the racks and “plugged” in the main distribution closet. With the combination of the pre-connectorised MUTOs and wall-plates, the plug and play Modlink fibre system, and the skill of Custom Cable Industries designers and installers, the installation of the telecommunications infrastructure was completed in less than a week.
Devere Archer was pleased with the outcome on the completed buildings. The professionalism and attention to detail by the Custom Cable installation team was excellent. The Molex Premise Networks products provide the technical performance Archer needs today and in the many years to come.
