CHALLENGE When it comes to any IT project, sometimes it takes a little luck to bring a project in on-time and on-budget. For the cabling infrastructure of the Century Bank project, it was lucky that ADC cable was specified—lucky because the choice of cable averted a two week project delay and thousands of dollars of unplanned expense. PROJECT HITS A SNAG Century Bank and Trust is a state-chartered full-service commercial bank operating 22 full-service branches in the greater Boston area. The construction project was a new 50,000 square foot headquarters and new main office branch located in Medford, Massachusetts. The project plan called for 3 ⁄4 inch conduit pipe to be installed in the ground floor concrete slab for routing of horizontal cable to workstations. Long after the floor was poured, the electrical contractor waived a red flag—there was no way to pull the specified eight copper cables through the installed conduit. At that time, the project team was resolved to sawing the concrete floor to install larger conduit—an expensive and time-consuming operation that would put the project behind schedule. Luckily for Century Bank, the solution was already in hand. CASE STUDY CENTURY BANK AVERTS COSTLY REWORK DUE TO CABLING CHOICE ADC Telecommunications, Inc., P.O. Box 1101, Minneapolis, Minnesota USA 55440-1101 Specifications published here are current as of the date of publication of this document. Because we are continuously improving our products, ADC reserves the right to change specifications without prior notice. At any time, you may verify product specifications by contacting our headquarters office in Minneapolis. ADC Telecommunications, Inc. views its patent portfolio as an important corporate asset and vigorously enforces its patents. Products or features contained herein may be covered by one or more U.S. or foreign patents. An Equal Opportunity Employer 101485 10/05 Original © 2005 ADC Telecommunications, Inc. All Rights Reserved Web Site: www.adc.com From North America, Call Toll Free: 1-800-366-3891 • Outside of North America: +1-952-938-8080 Fax: +1-952-917-3237 • For a listing of ADC’s global sales office locations, please refer to our web site. CASE STUDY AIRES ™ TECHNOLOGY DETERMINES WINNING BID In selecting the cabling solution for the project—long before ground was broken—analysis of several cabling vendors settled upon the ADC AirEs ™ cabling solution. It was determined that AirEs cable offered superior performance at a fair price. The name AirEs—Air Enhanced System—defines the competitive advantage of using air as conductor insulation. AirEs technology is used for all ADC Category 5e, Category 6, and CopperTen ™ 10 Gbps cable. One of the fundamentals of producing high-quality cable is good Dielectric Constant of cable insulation material. Lower Dielectric Constant of insulation means better resistance to breakdown when an electrical field is applied—stronger signal strength. In terms of Dielectric Constant, the best cable insulation available is air. By creating integrated air pockets within traditional FEP insulation, AirEs cable insulation achieves a Dielectric Constant of about 1.8—a 31% improvement over an FEP-only insulation. With the advanced insulation, AirEs cable showed not only strong signal strength, but also reduced propagation delay and lower delay skew at the full 100 meters. Combined with ADC’s reputation for consistent, high-quality products, the AirEs technology earned the winning bid. AIRES TECHNOLOGY PREVENTS PROJECT NIGHTMARE While it may have been consistent quality and superior electrical performance that initially won the bid, a resultant benefit of AirEs technology is significant reduction of insulation material. When compared to other same Category cables, AirEs achieves as much as 32% reduction in cross sectional area—which means fill rates as high as 32% higher than with other cable solutions. For Century Bank, the choice of AirEs meant that the specified eight cables per conduit really were going to work. “We were ready to saw the floor,” said Jason Melius, vice president of information systems for Century Bank. “Luckily, our manufacturer’s rep got wind of the situation and stepped in. He met with the electrical contractor and showed him the small diameter of the (AirEs) cable that was already specified for the job. All of my problems went away. The electrical contractor was happy. And I didn’t have to spend thousands of dollars coring the floor,” said Melius. CONCLUSION What started as a buy-in on a high-performance cabling solution ended up saving thousands of dollars of construction costs due to the thinner, advanced design of ADC AireEs cable. “The cabling we chose was definitely of better quality than the typical cable available on the market,” said Melius. We also found the quality of jacks and connectors, the entire line-up of products, was just better quality. Most important, we kept the project on schedule,” he said. . www.adc.com From North America, Call Toll Free: 1-8 0 0-3 6 6-3 891 • Outside of North America: + 1-9 5 2-9 3 8-8 080 Fax: + 1-9 5 2-9 1 7-3 237 • For a listing of ADC’s global sales. time-consuming operation that would put the project behind schedule. Luckily for Century Bank, the solution was already in hand. CASE STUDY CENTURY BANK