Question Individual Cables or Unified Fiber Backbone?

[Reda_ELF]

Hello everyone,


We are in the design phase of building a full network infrastructure for a hotel. The services involved include PBX (telephony), IPTV, PMS (Property Management System), surveillance cameras, Internet access, and any other services that require Ethernet connectivity (RJ45).


We are considering two possible approaches:

1. Separate cabling setup – Each service would have its own dedicated Ethernet cabling (e.g., one for phones, another for cameras, another for IPTV, etc.).
2. Converged fiber backbone setup – All services would connect to a customized central switch, and this switch would have a single fiber optic uplink that carries all the services combined. This fiber would then be distributed to other switches or endpoints.

We’d really appreciate your advice on which architecture is more reliable and scalable for a hotel environment. Are there any risks, trade-offs, or best practices we should be aware of with either approach?


Thanks in advance for your insights!

 

[ch33zw1z]

Option 2. Managed switches and vlans.

Copper or fiber cabling depends on infrastructure variables like distance between switches and costs

 

[JackMDS]

If Cost is Not an Issue GO with all Fiber.

If cost is an issue it is much more complicated and it would not be resolved by few questions of the Internet.

It needs local high level specialist to be on the actual place and make decisions.