TNT Development Builds High-Tech Homes Using Belden® HomeChoice® Composite Cable
Tri-Net Technology’s Walnut Country development of luxury homes in Southern California was built specifically to propel home buyers into a high-tech future of home automation, home networking and advanced multimedia applications.

The cabling infrastructure Tri-Net Technology selected to support this vision was Belden’s HomeChoice Composite cable (P/N 7878A), an innovative cabling design that is UL-verified to meet Category 5e performance.  The 2x2x2 construction of HomeChoice #7878A conveniently “bundles” two RG-6 Duobond Plus® coaxial cables, two DataTwist® 350 Cat 5e 4—pair Bonded-Pair UTP cables and two multimode 62.5 micron LANLite® fiber optic cables, under a single outer jacket.  The composite cable meets the TIA/EIA-570-A standard for residential cabling and is designated by BICSI as a Grade Two configuration for residential applications.

Flexible Home Network Configuration
In each of the Walnut Country Homes, the HomeChoice cables were installed in a star topology in which the cables are home-run from a central distribution center in the master bedroom to each designated room.  This configuration provides optimum flexibility, allowing the homeowners to change out individual cables to serve varying functions as family needs change.  For example, the application of a nursery room’s cable could be converted in minutes from use of a closed circuit video or an Internet camera to an office requiring data and media connections for networked computers.  The structured cabling system brings telephone, video and network signals to a central media management center which features an intuitive “resource to room destination,” user-friendly design that makes it possible for changes to be made or new applications to be deployed as desired.

Each main room in the house has a 4-port multimedia outlet consisting of two coaxial cables for television transmission (antenna, CATV and satellite-based) and cable-based Internet hook-ups; two Cat 5e cables for phone and broadband Internet connections; and two fiber optic cables, which are left dark, in reserve for future use.

Steven Haworth, Tri-Net Technology’s communications director, adds “What home builders and integrators need to realize is that future-proofing [using a cable like HomeChoice 7878A] is as critical to the residential market as it is to commercial development because home technology is expanding at an incredible pace.”