One dozen years later, Charleston County, SC, is better connected than ever.

When Hurricane Hugo hit Charleston County in September 1989, not only was heavy damage done to county buildings, but the county's key telecommunications systems were seriously impaired, with parts wholly wiped out. County telecommunications manager Patsy Gatch had 30 days to rewire the cabling infrastructure and install a new phone system in a temporary courthouse facility before employees moved in.

"That experience," she says, "made it clear that hurricane damage was but one of my problems. The county's cabling system was out of date."

Numerous levels of wiring and components had been installed over the years in buildings of varying ages; some of the piecemeal wiring ran through four or five closets before reaching its destination. County headquarters had more than 800 terminations fitted with nearly as many types of components, typical of most of the county's older buildings. As county design engineer Jim Swigert puts it, "Whoever was there at the time put in whatever brand they had in the back of the truck."

By 1995, Charleston County officials began planning for a five-year capital project that would include construction of a new public services building and a new judicial center, plus renovation of three older county properties. Gatch says the first phase, construction of the new public services building, was critical since it would be the central communications hub for the entire county.

The communications system solution needed to successfully address the county's diverse current needs, while lending itself to future upgrades. Recommendations varied.

Ultimately, Charleston County and its data contractor, Systems & Computer Technology Corp., worked closely with Superior Modular Products (SMP) from Swannanoa, NC, to finalize design specifications and technical requirements for deployment of a state-of-the-art copper cabling system and fiber cabling for future high-bandwidth opportunities.

The Category 5e solution saved Charleston County nearly one-half of the original projected cost over a Category 6 solution, while offering considerable growth options.

Category 5e connectivity was chosen as the copper solution, since it offered the capability to handle 10/100Base-T and Gigabit Ethernet protocols. For fiber, MT-RJ multimode small form factor connectivity will be able to handle future high-bandwidth demands. BellSouth chose its own Smart Ring technology to provide automatic rerouting of voice and data traffic via a single-mode backbone, should any part of the system malfunction.

The more than 900 workstations throughout the three-story building are linked to telecom closets on each floor with SMP CAT 5e patch panels and MT-RJ fiber cabinets. Single-mode fiber, using SC connectivity, links the fiber cabinets. BellSouth's CAT 5e+ copper cables terminate on each floor in Superior Modular Products' seven-foot equipment racks housing SMP VCM6 vertical cable managers and COMB 3519 horizontal cable managers, along with 32-, 48- and 64-port CAT 5e EFS copper patch panels and CAT 5e EFS patch cords.

SMP's CAT 5e EFS voice and data jacks, which exceed existing CAT 5e EIA/ TIA standards, are used in 3-, 4- and 6-port faceplates. All jacks use SMP's universal color-coded bezels, which offer users easily identifiable jack functions.

In both courtrooms and the conference room, multimedia boxes for up to 16 adapters and jacks allow multiple computers to be fully operational at the same time. "Should we ever need it, these court/conference rooms can become interim emergency telecommunication centers," Gatch notes. The emergency operation center uses SMP's SME4 surface mount boxes to house CAT 5e copper jacks and MT-RJ fiber jacks.

The telecommunication hub is now complete, and it is fully wired to support the satellite county locations. With this phase of the solution in place, Charleston County will have the opportunity to increase its data capacity over the years. "With fiber," Gatch says, "we're ready for multigigabit applications."

During construction of the Charleston County public service building (occupied in January), SMP personnel provided MT-RJ fiber connectivity and copper connectivity training. SMP personnel also researched problems and visited the construction site every couple of weeks.

As Charleston County still continues to recover from Hugo's wrath, more projects remain. There is no guarantee the remaining construction and renovation will go without a glitch. "However," Gatch says, "the solution assures that we have a comprehensive standard in place and the components to make it work. Now, we have the basic communication infrastructure that we'll need for years to come."

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