[nycbug-talk] installing cat5 cabling

[alex at pilosoft.com]

On Fri, 22 Jul 2005, Charles Sprickman wrote:

> 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.
Union labor will be more than that.

> 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. :)
Check whether the building will *allow* you do to that.

> 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.
Home Depot has all of the above. Or you can go with graybar if you want 
wider selection.

-alex