atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Cabling Telephones Systems Wiring Phones on patch panel

I just looked at a site for one of my custumers to move into that was already wired with 2 cat6 cables to each office terminated on 48 port patch panels. There are probably over 700 wire runs in this building, half of which will be used for voice. They wanted my input as to if the wiring was up to par for their needs.

As for the data, thats a no brainer, it is fine. But for the voice I'm questionable. Their feed cable is installed on a patch panel also, so for MACS orders it would as simple as plugging in a patch cord. I've seen their data closets after I left so I'm a little skeptical having 300+ digital/analog at their mercy to patch. I envision a rats nest at the patch panel.

I just wanted to get some of your thoughts and suggestions.
Thanks in advance!!

Daytech

It might not be too much of a rat's nest if you patch with one or two pair line cords. Still, I don't like it. I have also seen people put plugs on the ends of cross connect wire and if it's done neatly, it's not too bad.

That may help.

They will end up with data cords and Lan cords in the the same management so that may help distinguish the cords apart from one another.

With out labling the voice wires "voice" and the data wires "data" is there a risk of damage to equipment, like ringing voltage on the LAN or to a CPU??

Also, I thought of another issue, with one wire to use for voice per office, it will be difficult for them to add an analog line along with an existing digital set.

I would purchase the same brand patch panels and wire the phone system lines and stations to them. Label it neatly and use short patch cords to cross connect everything.

The phone stuff will use pairs 4&5 and possibly 3&6. LAN doesn't normally use those pairs so the risk factor is a little lower. Digital sets won't be the problem, it's that analog ring voltage that's the killer but it will definitely be on the 4/5 pair. Use a different color patch cord as well.

I definitely agree that the single cable to each location is a bit of a problem. We did a major dual cat6 install very similar to yours last year. The customer's consultant mandated how all wiring was to be done and we ended up with the same situation when it came time to install the phones.

What we ended up doing was using solid wire patch cables and punching the opposite end down on blocks adjacent to the KSU's blocks. At least that way, the "patching" ended up being somewhat permanent and we had all four pairs terminated in a technician friendly arrangement.

Of course, they tell you never to split pairs out in a structured wiring installation, so to keep the consultant happy, we just used RJ14 splitters at the location requiring a second extension.

It actually ended up looking pretty nice. We had three somewhat large bundles of these cables, neatly laced up from the rack, across a ladder rack to the wall, then down to 110 blocks. Traditional jumpers were used from there. We extended all of the ports on the voice patch panels over, even ones that weren't being used so that the bundles wouldn't ever have to be disturbed. A lot of work, but it looked nice and the customer paid plenty extra.

After that job, the consultant came to realize that terminating voice on patch panels maybe isn't such a good idea. He was of the mindset that all customers either use ISDN or VoIP, hence his requirement for 568B patch panels. He's now decided that maybe 110 is the better way to go for voice "just in case".

I have never seen a patch panel voice install of a 100 or more voice ports that after a few years of amc's that it was not a rats nest .

I agree that voice on patch panels can be a burden. We do it on smaller installations where the customer wants to be able to move their own phones around. Since many of our phone systems (Avaya Partner and IP Office) are already modular, it's a breeze. On larger installs, we'd rather terminate EVERYTING on 110 and use 110-to-modulular patch cords for data. Gives easy access to every pair for voice and takes up WAY less space...
Mike

There is an existing patch panel with a 300 pair cable which feeds into another "computer room" which has 1 pair terminated onto the blue pair of each jack of the patch panel. In this computer room is where the PBX must have been.

I agree with twisted pair. Install patch panels at each location, punch your voice cables down on them then treat the other end as you normally would. Use different color patch cords and, what I would do is cut the tab off the plugs so that once they are inserted they can't be removed easily. That should drive those IT geeks nuts.

-Hal