Get in the Know at the BICSI Winter Conference!

Fiber’s Role in Smart Buildings

When it comes to smart buildings, most of us think of copper cabling in the horizontal and its ability to support a range of devices, from digital lighting and security devices, to Wi-Fi access points, AV displays and even building automation. And with most of these devices now being powered via PoE, copper will remain the de facto cable type for horizontal cabling in these spaces. But that doesn’t mean that fiber doesn’t also play in important role in these spaces. 

As part of the TIA’s Fiber Optic Technology Consortium, our own Jim Davis along with other industry experts will be holding the pre-conference seminar Fiber’s Role in Smart Buildings – Considerations for Deployment and Testing to highlight where and when fiber is critical to the deployment of smart buildings. Worth 3 BICSI CECs, this seminar will take place on Monday, February 10 from 8:30 a.m. – 12 p.m.  During this seminar, you’ll learn the role of fiber in supporting emerging applications like IoT, 5G and data centers, as well as connector choices and testing considerations. This informative panel-style seminar will give you the opportunity to discuss fiber for smart buildings through interactive small group activities.

Ensuring Industrial Ethernet Uptime

Over the past two decades, Industrial Ethernet has become the primary communication for industrial automation systems, and with new single-pair Ethernet standards like 10BASE-T1S and 10BSAE-T1L and future multi-gig standards in development within IEEE, we will start to see Industrial Ethernet replacing traditional fieldbus applications. This paves the way for Industrial Ethernet all the way from machine sensors to programmable logic controllers to the factory backbone and on to the enterprise network, edge data center and ultimately the cloud. 

While testing has been a mainstay in the enterprise LAN and data center, it’s just as important in the industrial space since more than half of Industrial Ethernet problems can be traced to cabling. In fact, testing is even more critical in this space where environmental changes can cause communications failures. If you want to know more about copper cabling standards for Industrial Ethernet and what you need to consider when testing these systems across the factory floor, join Jim Davis when he teams up with Mike Berg of Panduit for the session Cable Testing Means More Uptime: Standards and Testing of Industrial Ethernet Copper Cabling. Worth 1 CEC, this session will take place on Tuesday, February 11 from 1:30- 2:30 p.m. You might just learn a thing or two to help you prevent problems and save hours of troubleshooting and downtime for Industrial Ethernet cabling systems.

Need to know more? Visit our Booth #310 during exhibiting hall hours on Monday, February 10 from 4:30-7:30 p.m., Tuesday, February 11 from 2-7:30 p.m. and on Wednesday, February 12 from 7:30 a.m.-1 p.m. where you can ask our experts your testing questions and get hands-on demos of our range of copper, fiber and PoE testing solutions to ensure compliance and performance for all your applications.