How to choose a cabling contractor.

The difference is made in quality materials and proper knowledge and installation.

Where we gain our competitive edge, is through efficiency. Not by sparing expense when choosing materials and supplies.

The following page will help you understand how these things can go wrong and what you should insist on when hiring a cabling contractor to do your installation. Many of these things are not obvious when you look at the finished product but they are extremely important in ensuring a reliable, safe and problem free network.

COMMON ERRORS MADE BY CABLE CONTRACTORS:

The Hardware:

Basing the choice of bulk cable and connectors strictly on cost:

CAT5e cable by specification, is designed to meet certain standards. It must be capable of 100 MHz with only an acceptable amount of attenuation(bit errors) during testing. A quality manufacturer designs their cable to exceed the "minimum acceptable standards" and therefore are more tolerant in less pleasant environments.

Similarly, connectors are produced in a range of "cheap" to "high quality" connectors. Every manufacturer has their own design for connectors. Generally, the cheaper ones are not designed or manufactured as well and leave you vulnerable to error in installation that could more easily lead to a non-compliant connection.
High quality hardware ensures long-term performance and reliability. Installations with cheap hardware often lead to cable drops that when tested cannot be certified CAT6 or CAT5e.

The installation:

Also very common is improper installation.

Cables with kinks, cuts and nicks from pulling through difficult structures. Connectors must be installed exactly according to manufacturer's specifications. There are numerous errors that could easily result in poor attenuation to crosstalk ratio (main benchmark for performance) and would fail the certification test.

This job is often given to in-experienced installers/"helpers". When they find the cable difficult to work with and terminate, it becomes degraded very quickly.

The best cable and hardware produced are junk if not properly handled during installation.

The Project planning:

The project manager needs to know certain things in order to plan a proper installation.

Lack of attention to basic project details:
Often a quick survey of the site will result in recommendations that will change the scope of the job saving the customer time and money in the long-run. i.e. additional drop requirements, unnecessary drops, other mediums for certain applications such as fiber optics or wireless.

Not considering the existing hardware:
You may already have cabling installed and want to add new cabling. The existing cable install should be looked at. Some costs are unnecessary. For example you may have an existing patch panel with enough capacity to accommodate the new installation. If your current cabling is of good quality, it may be wise to use the same manufacturer's parts to add to it.

Poor knowledge of safety and legal obligations:
A lot of installations are not even compliant with Fire Codes. When running through a plenum air return (drop ceiling in most offices) FT-6 or 'Plenum grade' cable must be used to meet fire safety building code provisions. FT-6 cables propagated flame seven times less than the FT-4 cables and give of 40 times less smoke. FT-4 cables smolder significantly once the ignition source is closed down, giving off more than 80 times more smoldering smoke than the FT-6 rated cables. It's easy to see why the use of FT-6 in air plenums has become part of our provincial building code but at more than twice the cost over FT-4, it's often where people opt to purchase and take their chances installing FT-4.

Overlooked Network topology and voice/data co-existence:
An understanding of current network switching and routing practices will go a long way in planning an effective cable installation. The actual physical cabling requirements can often be effected by the switching and routing technologies in use or available for use.
Knowing the phone system's current and possible future requirements is important also. Phone terminations need to be done in compliance with Telco best practices. VoIP phone systems should be part of the cabling plan too. This is the time to consider size and speed of the network and network segmentation and how it will best support a trouble-free VoIP system.

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