communications engineering
A company that designs a building's telecommunications infrastructure and associated IT spaces.
Communications engineers are a specialized group who design the telecommunications backbone and the associated IT areas that are required for a wired building. The design goes beyond the simple running of data, voice, LAN cabling or locating WiFi (WLAN) emitters, they deal with flexibility of system design for different technologies of different tenants as well as the emerging technologies that the system will need to support over the lifetime of the building.
The engineering concerns the building's telecommunications system as an arrangement that can accommodate different tenant technologies. Its scope includes the associated IT areas as well as the routes and connections carrying information.
An electrical contractor installs wiring and equipment, while this role concerns communications design and the flexibility described above. Providing a cable route alone does not describe the full telecommunications planning activity.