Type of works: supply and installation of Belden Cat6 bonded cables.

Leading UK law firm, Reynolds Porter Chamberlain LLP, has selected a Belden structured cabling system for their new offices at Tower Bridge House in London.

With more than 60 partners, the London-based law firm Reynolds Porter Chamberlain LLP (RPC) employs a total of 450 people and provides a one-stop service to UK and international clients, working on projects spanning many jurisdictions. Until relatively recently, RPC occupied two separate offices in the City of London. Due to its continued success, RPC had outgrown their existing premises and needed to expand into a larger building. The firm decided to consolidate the activities of their two London offices into the prestigious new Tower Bridge House building, which is located close to the key landmarks of Tower Bridge and the Tower of London.

The company has its own IT department, responsible for installing and maintaining its IT infrastructure. This department was charged with finding an effective cabling solution for the new building. Quality, performance and reliability ranked high on the list for their cabling solution selection criteria. “Our plan was to create a flood wired facility, so that users can plug into the system anywhere over the four floors of the building we occupy. Our key focus was on quality and reliability.” says Craig Hawthorne, RPC Infrastructure Manager.

The final choice was a 6,000 ports Cat6 installation, using Belden Cat6 bonded cables. Belden Cat6 cables feature stringent specifications for crosstalk and system noise and provides performance of up to 250MHz. The Belden Cat6 cables feature Belden’s patented Bonded-Pair technology. This unique patented cabling solution guarantees performance well beyond the minimum levels quoted in the standards, and effectively gives headroom well above the limit that may be expected of lesser cables.

Bonded-Pair technology bonds the two conductors of a twisted pair together along the entire length of the cable. This prevents performance-robbing gaps from forming between the conductors of a pair during the rigors of installation. Gaps can rob a cable of its electrical performance, resulting in reduced network efficiency for the customer and increased troubleshooting time for installers.

Since no gaps can occur, and the conductor-to conductor spacing, or centricity, is always uniform, the cable offers excellent and consistently reliable electrical performance – even after the cable has been subjected to the bending, pulling and twisting that is inherent in the installation process. Since Belden^® Bonded-Pair cables cannot gap, the customer gets the full after-installation performance that they paid for. We call this unique after-installation performance capability ‘Belden Installable Performance’.

Craig Hawthorne explains that there were a number of reasons why Belden Cat6 cables were selected: “As well as being a highly respected brand, Belden’s bonded pair cable provided excellent resilience against damage.”

“We also looked at the expected life of Cat6 and compared it to that of Cat5E cables. Once installed, the cables are in the walls and we need to be able to advance our system, without having to rewire the building. Therefore, we decided to ‘buy extra time’, as we expect this system to remain operational for 25 years or so.”

“Design, installation and testing were all carried out by qualified installers and we now have an efficient IT system which will allow us to make any essential changes to our office lay-out quickly and easily. This provides RPC with both the durability and long term flexibility for sustained business growth.”

Belden IBDN Category 6 cables offer a guaranteed industry-leading performance beyond the standard requirements. In addition, Belden offers the IT manager and the facility manager a number of cost effective cable management and connectivity options, with no compromise in performance. For networking applications, Belden offers complete, end-to-end structured cabling solutions. These include cables, connectivity modules and patch cords as well as cable management and accessories.