Everyone knows that a network cabling installation that is fully up to the latest standards is essential in the modern workplace. Since the introduction of UTP Cat5 in the early ’90’s network cabling has moved on leaps and bounds to the 10g modern networks users could only dream about even a few years ago.
The much talked of fibre to the desktop revolution at the turn of the century didn’t happen. Why? Quite simply the copper-based twisted pair products developed so far, and so quickly that fibre speeds were being delivered direct to the end user in copper with none of the additional costs incurred in fibre optical installation.
In the year 2000 a Cat6 UTP installation was cutting edge, now they can be found in most Schools, Colleges, Businesses and even home networking solutions.
And yet problems still persist. At Project Associates Ltd we employ Cisco CCNA trained network Engineers to carry out Hardware Installations on behalf of National Clients and the Public Sector. As many as 30 sites of over 200 – 500 users each are fitted with new Cisco Hardware by PA every week of the year, and yet many sites do not even reach the stage of having the redundant hardware removed.
The reason? Patching. Simple as that. We see many sites with a perfect Cat6 / Cat6a installation, fully capable of delivering Gigaspeed networks to the desktop, that on testing barely achieve Cat5 speeds that were getting slow in 1993! There are two reasons for this, poor cabinet layout, and cheap quality patchleads.
Quite often a network cabling project is delivered by the contractor as part of the build, or as a separate installation on completion. The contractor builds the cabinets, tests the cabling, and leaves site. The hardware and it’s cable management is then installed by the user, who often has little or no experience of what is required. Racking 48 port switches one on top of the other, and then cramming all the patchleads into a single U space so that if you are lucky you can shut the cab door, will result in only one thing, an error ridden, slow, horrible network that is a nightmare to maintain, and where moves and changes are virtually impossible without making things worse. Add onto this the practice of buying patchleads online for 49p each, using a 5 metre lead where a 2 metre is required, and pretty soon any cabling management ability is lost.
We have recently dealt with an issue where a client provided their own patchleads which were bought very cheaply online. The site was patched, and over 50% of the outlets failed to work. On investigation the patchleads they had bought had pins that stuck out of the RJ45 so far the plug had to be forced into the socket. This produced permanent damage to the socket, and as a result over 100 RJ45 outlets had to be changed at the end users cost, and the warranty was void. Not a cost effective move.