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02.05.2019

BICSI Conference Showcases ICT Opportunities, Trends

Where do you go to see all the latest and greatest in your industry? How can you go about getting in touch with some of the greatest minds of your trade? Conferences and tradeshows, of course! In the ICT (Information Communication Technology) industry, nobody puts on a better conference than BICSI. They’re the leading global resource for education, training, and publications for all things related to low-voltage and telecommunications.

I recently had the opportunity to attend the 2019 BICSI Winter Conference & Exhibition in Orlando. People from around the world gather to attend these conferences to best posture themselves and the organizations they represent for success in the constant technological revolution we seem to find ourselves in year after year. Overwhelming comes to mind when I try to summarize my time at the conference, but I’ll focus on some of my favorite and most impactful takeaways.

The People: Never have I been so surrounded by individuals with such impressive skill sets and depth of experience. Industry leaders I’ve followed for many years from a distance are now accessible, available, and just a hand-shake away. These people are making real changes in the global market by developing standards-making panels and forming committees that are tackling the tidal wave of technological growth.

The Technology: The entire exhibition hall was full of technology innovators sharing their latest offerings. Every single booth had something new and exciting to share. The top three trending industry technologies, in my opinion, would have to be:

  1. Power over Ethernet (PoE): Power over Ethernet is a technology standard that can pass power across the same cabling that we use to distribute network connectivity. In a previous blog article, I talked about the enormous impact that intelligent building and design is having on our industry. The amount of intelligent PoE devices hitting the market is soaring and beginning to reshape our workplace. PoE lighting, for example, is all LED driven and will no longer be a part of the traditional power distribution when integrated. Imagine replacing every light fixture in your workplace with a low powered, intelligent, networked device that can adjust brightness and color temperature automatically depending on the time of day and other factors. The sustainability benefits and quality of life improvements will make this a hot topic for years to come.
  2. Category 6A Twisted Pair Cable: Not a terribly exciting piece of trending technology, but critically important to our networks of the future. Cat. 6A is the recommended cable to be installed for most applications today because of its superior bandwidth and ability to pass PoE better than its predecessors. With all the PoE technology that’s coming, we’ll need a cable that can dissipate the heat that gets generated when pushing up to 90 watts of power to our devices, and Cat. 6A is up to the task.
  3. Single Mode Fiber Optic Cable: We’re installing more fiber optic cabling than ever before. The networks of the future will be bandwidth hogs, and there’s no better cable suited for backbone cabling applications than Single Mode. Gone are the days when we’d only install this cable when we needed to go very long distances; it’s now becoming the preferred media for short-, medium-, and long-haul networking needs.

The Future: As the aging ICT industry’s leadership is ripening for massive retirement, a new generation of leaders and pioneers are needed today. With the passing of the torch and the non-stop developmental breakthroughs happening, it makes this career space wrought with opportunity.

If you’re as geeked out as me over these ever-emerging technologies, a career in the ICT industry may be just what you’re looking for. At Faith Technologies, our Talent team is paving the way for these new industry leaders with our world-class training centers, curriculum, and certified staff.

What do you see as the emerging trends in the ICT industry? Would you like to learn more about the career opportunities available in the field? Reach out to me and let’s talk.