In a structured cabling system, what is the role of horizontal cabling?

In a structured cabling system, horizontal cabling plays a crucial role in connecting telecommunications rooms to individual work areas. This type of cabling is responsible for carrying data and voice signals from the central telecommunications room or equipment room directly to the workstations or outlets located throughout the building.

Horizontal cabling typically runs along the floors and ceilings of a building, often in a star topology configuration, ensuring that multiple devices in various work areas can connect to network infrastructure, such as switches and routers. By utilizing horizontal cabling, the structured cabling system enables effective communication and data transfer among devices in different rooms or locations within a given floor.

Other options, while related to cabling systems, describe different functions. For instance, distributing power to network devices is not the primary purpose of horizontal cabling; rather, that is often handled by separate electrical systems or Power over Ethernet (PoE) setups. Similarly, connecting different telecommunications rooms is a role typically associated with backbone cabling, which serves as the main infrastructure linking telecommunications rooms across various floors or areas. Lastly, the primary backbone of the system is the vertical cabling or backbone cabling that connects different telecommunications rooms and provides pathway for all data and network activity across the entire building or campus. Thus,