Adtran ActivReach Delivers Over Legacy WireAdtran ActivReach Delivers Over Legacy Wire

Conquering the age-old problem of confronting cabling issues while making it practical and integrated into an enterprise-class switching platform.

How rocking cool is this! Adtran introduced their latest technology built into their new Netvanta 1535P switching platform--the capability of using legacy wiring up to distances of 1,200 feet (365 meters) and supply up to 100Mbps (10/100Mbps) Ethernet and PoE.

In the early days of IPT, I wrote how we converted legacy wire plant using Amphenol adapters to convert 25-pair wiring plant using 8-port adapters to provide 569B or Ethernet-type wiring. At both ends of the Amphenol adapter we then connect a Cat5 patch cord to the IP phone and one at the other end to the PoE LAN switch. Voice worked but data was less than ideal.

ActivReach is no workaround or band-aid. In fact, we have several campuses where we can deploy this solution as a fix that will last until the schools can collect the funds to extend fiber. Some buildings simply don't need fiber or an expensive switch and instead we can add a 1535P switch to the IDF serving the wire plant in place and then add a few media converters for phone locations and save the expense of adding fiber altogether and avoid adding another switch location.

Adtran ActivReach reaches out in other ways too. In Washington, DC we have scores of older, architecturally preserved buildings that have old embedded legacy wiring. These buildings are challenges when it comes to adding cabling and in many cases we won't add cabling simply because of the inability to conceal the new drops and not to disrupt any of the materials used in the original construction, such as horse hair plaster or hand hewn flooring that is still intact, or even the thinner free formed bricks from pre-Civil War era.

I recently visited the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC and noted the concealed legacy telephone wiring for the digital phones that are used by security guards at their stations throughout the home. Those drops could easily be converted, and WiFi can now be a reality; wouldn't the Vanderbilts be happy!

Just don't be fooled into thinking that this only applies to old historic buildings and school campuses, because wiring challenges exist in modern buildings and numerous other sites. Cabling done right isn't cheap and when you decide to negotiate down wiring expense, you end up getting what you paid for. One of the key assets of companies or building owners is installed wiring.

Reusing wiring often means taking time to identify, trace, re-terminate, test and document. Even so, with ActivReach a substantial amount of labor is avoided, especially when deploying IP phones or WiFi Access Points, by not having to install new Cat5E or better cabling.

The other cool thing about the technology is the ability to use one pair of wires and connect the pair to a Netvanta 1535P at both ends. This creates an ActivReach link and in the switching world, links can be aggregated and the bandwidth pooled so this increases the bandwidth between links.

Businesses that are caught in budget constraints also benefit by delaying expensive cabling/re-cabling projects and using existing infrastructure. Using just a single Cat3 drop to a workgroup cluster, for example, will yield 4 individual 10/100 Mbps ports with PoE. This doesn't mean replacing the Netvanta 1535P switch because the ports are 10/100/1000.

For the IT folks really concerned about legacy wiring impacting the data network performance, you can still place the telephony ports in a VLAN and do adaptive-reuse of the legacy wiring for the IP phones only, and in effect you are running parallel voice and data networks. This is ideal when you have multiple IDFs or simply want to avoid re-cabling expenditures and reduce install time.

Once a cable is installed, regardless of its age, it becomes a part of your infrastructure. Too often the thinking is, rip it out. Often, customers and businesses don't realize the substantial expense involved in cabling and time expended on qualifying a site or even attempting to install new wire. We've exhausted the same number of hours reusing existing cable plants abandoned by previous tenants and building owners and still the job was easier to adapt and reuse (adaptive reuse) than pulling new wire.

So the reality is with ActivReach, you're not necessarily adapting 4-pairs of legacy wire for just one 10/100Mbps drop. This means you only need one pair for each 10/100Mbps drop with PoE and that translates to less labor, no disruption to the infrastructure or building while still allowing room for more opportunity to use link aggregation if the pairs are needed and available. Adtran addressed my other concerns about EMI/RF on the old noisy cable plants. By year-end they will be introducing specially designed protectors.

Adtran's ActivReach conquers the age-old problem of confronting difficult cabling and re-cabling issues while making it practical and integrated into an enterprise-class switching platform.