Network & Data Racks

Q. What kind of telecoms cabinets does Rainford Solutions sell?

Rainford is the original designer and manufacturer of the racks and cabinets that we sell for all our customers, i.e. we are not a reseller or distributor for any other brands such as Rittal, Schneider or Minkels.

We supply racks and cabinets for indoor applications, such as data center, telephone exchange / central office, head ends, and outdoor IP-rated passive and active cabinets for fixed and wireless broadband, and cell sites for mobile network operators (MNO’s).  19 inch, ETSI, ANSI or custom formats are available.

Most of our business with network operators is supplied to their specifications either directly, or as part of a solution via OEM technology companies and system integrators that supply networking equipment or end-to-end solutions for operators.

Q. What are important considerations for an indoor rack or cabinet?

This isn’t your first rack, and by now you know what you like and don’t like, and the particular challenges of your application you’d like to solve.

That might be effective airflow for heat management and energy consumption, power distribution, managing high copper and optical cable density, ease of equipment installation, environmental sensors that feed into your DCIM tool, physical security – perhaps with ISO compliance in mind, fire detection and suppression, and you may require an IP-rating if the environment isn’t a cleanroom.

Whatever challenges you face, Rainford’s approach to tailoring a solution right for you including innovative mechanical and electrical design is quick and cost-effective.

Q. What makes Rainford’s racks and cabinets so good?

First off, they are YOURS, not ours.  Here’s our simple proposition:  chuck away your confusing catalogues, chat with us and “have it your way”.

We will work with you to design the right solution for your challenges.  Our design library and flexible manufacturing means we can do this quickly and cost-effectively, even for modest volumes.

Once deployed, you won’t want to replace your cabinets.  Check out the Rainford “No Goob!” promise on our outdoor cabinets – we fully weld our outdoor cabinets and use proper environmental seals, not perishable silicon sealant.  You get the best possible water and dust proof performance.  For your cabinets to live long and prosper, this is the way.

Q. What are important considerations for an outdoor cabinet?

Cabinets housing active electronics outdoors in the elements are subject to a variety of risk factors that can affect equipment reliability, as well as simple asset protection.

Best possible reliability is key to keeping lifetime costs low (from field maintenance visits), as well as maintaining reputation from high network uptime– a key issue for customers evaluating their network.

The following checklist are the main considerations to mitigate the various risks in any outside plant infrastructure:

• Physical security features against vandalism, theft, intrusion by rodents and insects
• Managing heat dissipation equipment cooling and airflow
• Protecting against hostile environmental factors such as water from rain and condensation, dust, corrosive atmospheres, high gust wind loading
• Supporting neat, easy to maintain copper and optical cable runs
• Human factors to reduce installation and commissioning errors and field service time
• Consideration of vibration, seismic or blast shock conditions if appropriate
• Shielding from interference due to radio frequency (RF) and electromagnetic fields (EMC)
• Integration with remote monitoring systems, environmental parameters such as internal temperature, door security, cooling system or power failures

Q. What IP rating should I select for an outdoor cabinet?

The IP rating of the cabinet is very much dictated by the resilience of the equipment that is to be operated inside.  If the equipment is already highly rated then a lower rating on the cabinet can be acceptable, and vice versa.  Here is a full blog post on the subject.

Q. Why should I choose Rainford for my project?

1. Specialist enclosure design resource complimentary to your own specialist engineering teams
2. Quality = reliability = network uptime and lowest whole life costs, and best for your company reputation
3. We have the production capacity to cope with the largest projects
4. Complete flexibility in design and individual solutions
5. Responsiveness to your requirements
6. Old fashioned service, we are the original friendly Northern cabinet geeks