[nycbug-talk] installing cat5 cabling

[Charles Sprickman]

Hi,

One of my clients is going to be moving in the next month.  One thing no 
one really thought about (at least as far as cost) is the network cabling. 
Wow...  I had no idea that it averaged about $150/jack, with a small 
discount for multi-outlet jacks (for example $120/jack on a quad jack). 
At 42 jacks, that hurts.  Lots.  We are already in a good deal of cash for 
construction, A/C for the small co-lo, and upgrading the electrical 
service.

So after talking with a few of the guys that work in the office, we 
thought we should look at taking this on ourselves.  We all can work a 
punchdown tool and a cable tester, and at the prices we were quoted, the 
install was pretty simple; they are just going to tie-wrap the cables to 
the electrical conduit (it's a pretty bare SoHo space).  Originally I 
balked at doing it as I don't do conduit, but apparently no one else does 
for under $300/jack anyhow. :)

We're only looking at a dozen desks, but the support guys each can eat up 
a half-dozen jacks, and we're putting our phone system in the same cabling 
setup so we can easily convert to VoIP in a few months.  Everything goes 
back to a patch panel so support guys can easily get a POTS or (S/A)DSL 
line to their desks, or pull in another network for testing, etc.  I think 
42 jacks is not really overkill.

It looks like we need about 6300' of cable, a few patch panels, the 
surface mount boxes, 2/4/6/8 outlet jacks, lots of tie wraps, a new 
punchdown tool and a decent cable tester.

Does anyone here have a favorite vendor for cabling supplies?  I need to 
break out labor vs. parts on this to decide if we want to take a few 
employees over and do this ourselves, but I'm not familiar with any of the 
vendors out there.  Local or mail order, either is fine.

Thanks,

Charles