|  | 8.3 |

Planning Structured Cabling: Identifying Potential Wiring Closets

| 8.3.3 | Determining number of wiring closets

After you have drawn in all of the devices that are to be connected to your network (floor plan), the next step is to determine how many wiring closets you will need to serve the area covered by the network. You will use your site map to do this.

Use your compass to draw circles that represent a radius of 50 m. from each of the potential hub locations. Each of the network devices that you drew on your floor plan should fall within one such circle. However, if each horizontal cabling run can only be 90 m. in length, can you think of a reason why circles with a radius of only 50 m. would be used?

After you have drawn the circles, look at the floor plan again. Are there any potential hub locations whose catchment areas substantially overlap? If so, you could probably eliminate one of the hub locations. Are there any potential hub locations whose catchment areas can contain all of the devices that are to be connected to the network? If so, then one of them could probably serve as the wiring closet for the entire building. If you will need more than one hub in order to provide adequate coverage for all of the devices that will be connected to the network, check to see if one of them is closer to the POP than the other(s). If so, you will probably want to select it to serve as the MDF.

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