Integrated range of shielded/unshielded products now includes WARP solution for unshielded 10GBase-T

Swiss cabling specialist Reichle & De Massari (R&M) welcomes Pete Gough as new Managing Director for the United Kingdom. In recent years, Pete has successfully raised the profile and market share of his previous employer. “We’re delighted to have Pete on board,” states Managing Director Western Europe Edgar van Essen. “R&M are currently rolling out ambitious growth plans across Europe and the UK is an important focal point. Our new Managing Director for the UK brings in-depth knowledge and experience of UK markets on board. We look forward to building our brand together and taking our ‘Swiss precision’ to new markets.”

Pete has been in the datacom industry for the past 21 years and brings in-depth knowledge of both Office Cabling & Data Centre markets and solutions. Pete has worked as Principal Network Support Engineer for a major Telco in the UK before he became Panduit‘s European Product Support Manager and Regional Business Director for the Middle East and Pakistan. He also developed and grew the company’s DCIM business across EMEA. Pete’s knowledge of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model (ISO/IEC 7498-1) model allows him to understand the need for a quality solution at physical layer 1 and the impact that has throughout infrastructure performance – and therefore the business.

New: WARP solution for unshielded 10GBase-T

Traditionally, R&M has a strong leading position in technology for both shielded and unshielded systems for Data Centres, Office Cabling and Fibre-Optic Technology. This makes it possible for the company to offer professional, unbiased advice to the customer to find the optimum solution together, be it shielded or unshielded, to last through several generations of active equipment. The newly introduced WAve Reduction Pattern (WARP) technology is a prime example. This accommodates the demands placed on such systems by the rapid uptake of 10GBase-T data transmission. Transmitting at 10 Gbit/s involves the use of a sensitive, high frequency coding method. The sampling rates and the number of voltage values are many times higher than for 1000Base-T. As a result, susceptibility to interference increases by a factor 100, due to the slight differences in potential between input signals from one bit level to the next. This is caused by the rise in cable attenuation at these high frequencies, and by the increased coding. In order for 10GBase-T to work correctly, it is crucial to control and suppress interference from outside the cables.

Innovative WARP technology uniquely combines the superior protection of shielded cable with the convenience of unshielded cable. To achieve this, the system is partially ‘shielded’ by adding short, isolated sections of shielding (metal foil) to the cable. Because there is no continuous shielding, it does not need to be earthed. The length of each shielding section is chosen so that no standing waves can develop and produce negative effects in the frequency range up to 500MHz. Used in system, WARP technology allows ANEXT reserves that were previously only possible with shielding. This means there is no need for follow-up measurements of this parameter in the installation. Measurements are guaranteed by the layout of individual components (see fig 1 next page).

WARP cables offer a further advantage for Power over Ethernet (PoE). The integrated aluminium foil and thin cable sheath ensure heat generated in this cable by power transfer is lower than in comparable traditional cables, reducing ageing of plastic materials and allowing longer cable runs.