The smart building is no longer a vision of the future; it’s here and it’s in high demand. The surge in smart buildings, also referred to as connected or intelligent buildings, has been driven by the desire for safer, more efficient environments that allow the people within to be as productive as possible.

Smart buildings are made possible by structured cabling, which provides the foundation for the communication of information across a wide range of network-enabled devices. The implementation of these devices — as well as their future growth — relies on a flexible high-performance structured cabling system. In August 2017, BICSI released ANSI/BICSI 007, a new standard that provides requirements and recommendations for the design and implementation of structured cabling systems within intelligent buildings. The standard provides guidance for building automation systems, low-voltage lighting, combined data and power transmission — such as Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) — and the various other systems that make up an intelligent building.