Why is it important for schools to review their data cabling?
As schools prepare for the new school year, we wanted to share our advice regarding data cabling, to help your school telephone system stay connected at all times, move with the times and provide your students and staff with the best learning and teaching environment.
What is data cabling?
Data cabling is the network of cables across your school estate and buildings, which allows you to connect devices together and connect to the internet.
Without data cabling, your devices such as printers, interactive whiteboards, tablets and computers will not be able to communicate with one another, connect to the internet or access key information.
The importance of reviewing your cabling
Your cabling and network infrastructure is the most important part of your school's network, so it is vital that you are regularly reviewing your school's data cabling.
Through regular reviews, you are able to have a clear picture of your school's network, ensuring it is performing correctly and identifying issues early on, helping to mitigate a variety of risks such as power outages and downtime - both of which would be detrimental to the day-to-day running of your school.
Reviewing your cabling regularly and keeping your cables neat and in order will also allow you to identify any unnecessary pathways or applications you may have had in place, which could have been affecting your speeds and the quality of your connectivity.
Finally, through regularly reviewing your cabling you can ensure that your network is at a place where it could be easily altered and expanded, should you require additional services or greater coverage in the future.
Consider the changing needs of education
The education environment is one that is always changing and evolving, to meet the needs of 21st century students and provide the best possible learning experience.
Over recent years, this evolving has seen an increased use of technology within the classroom and across school estates, and this is only set to continue moving forward.
With an increased use of technology comes an increased need for effective data cabling.
Through working with an experienced provider who regularly reviews your data cabling network against your needs, they can easily integrate changes and additional cabling as your needs change, allowing you to evolve and also overcome challenges.
A recent example of how technology and connectivity has enabled schools to overcome challenges is the Covid-19 pandemic.
Refurbishments and new builds
Another key consideration for your data cabling is any changes you will be making to the physical infrastructure of your school estate,
When planning a refurbishment and/or new build at your school, it is essential to consider how this change will affect your existing cabling network and the changes you need to make to provide and maintain a strong level of connectivity.
Working alongside an experienced provider is a great way to ensure that you can stay connected and you will have everything in place, ready to allow your students and teachers to use the new space effectively when it is ready.
How we can help
Telecom Central provide reliable and cost effective telephone systems for schools, with a team of experienced engineers, we can work alongside your school to review your data cabling network.
We can visit you to conduct a site survey, assessing your requirements and ensuring you have the correct cabling in place.
We can also identify areas where your cabling may be hindering your connectivity and update cabling or re-cable areas across your school estate to boost speeds and reliability, ensuring you are prepared for whatever the future holds.