What Happens at the Central Point

In Step 3, you'll complete the cable connections at the central point by wiring one end of each cable to the patch panel. Then you'll mount the patch panel on a wall-mounted bracket.

On one side of the patch panel are rows of pin locations, or color-coded slots. Just as you did with the jacks, on the patch panel you'll use a punch tool to punch down the wires and make electrical connections. On the other side of the patch panel are rows of ports, which look like female phone jacks only bigger.

The "central point" is the place where the patch panel is housed. It can be a closet, a librarian's office or a corner of the computer lab; it just needs to be out of the way of traffic so that cables and wires don't get pulled out of place accidentally. The patch panel acts like a switchboard: After NetDay, a technician may use the ports to cross connect the cables coming in from the schoolrooms (forming a local network) and connect the local network to the outside (linking to the Internet or other wide area network).

Glossary of Terms