sundance-communications.com/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Cabling Telephones Systems Wiring New Building Cabling

New office building going up, needs suggestions on cabling. I'm thinking either each drop gets 4-Cat 6, or 2-Cat 6 and 2-5e.

There will eventually be a voip phones system someday. The 5e would handle that ok.

I've seen some augmented cat 6 that is quite a bit larger diameter that 'regular' cat 6. Is it worth it? What are the differences? with the augmented cat 6, the conduits will need to be 1" and the 4 square boxes will need to be extra deep.

Any suggestions on what to promote here? Thanks!

Jim

What kind of business is going into this building?

well i just ran into that situation earlier this week it depends on what kind of business and it depends on who the customer is talking to we had a job that was gonna have 35 duel cat5e drops and after the customer talked to the IT company he decided to go with 35 triple cat6 drops. If there is gonna be an IP system in the future than the data can plug into the back of the phone set so once you find out what kind of system is going in it will make it easier for suggestions.

If you want to plan for an eventual move to VoIP, treat all of your cabling as data cabling right from the start. Don't run Cat6 and terminate it on 66 or 110 blocks. Run Cat6 for everything to patch panels, and run 25pr cables from the 66 or 110 blocks to patch panels for voice, where you only terminate one pair to each port. Ortronics sells a "voice patch panel" with an amphenol connector on the back for just this purpose.

Cat6a is what you need for 10Gig, but I don't think it's worth the extra cost. In the data center, sure. Medical imaging, perhaps. To the average corporate desktop, not worth it. If the cable runs are short enough and done properly, you'll be able to run 10Gig over Cat6 if you really need it some day.

Hal must be on vacation.

The business is an electric utility. Lots of technology. Using a BCM 400 now, but it might be changed out to some kind of voip system. Still up in the air about that.

I agree that if any possibility of voip, wire it for that now. Is cat 6a the same as what I was calling 'augmented 6'? There will likely be some video conferencing in the future.

Having everything on a patch panel, voice, data, etc., is my goal, too. It will take some planning and thinking.

Thanks.
Jim

Too funny Arthur! :rofl:

Its fascinating how multiple data cable drops are being spec'd today when the whole idea of CTI (Computer Telephony Integration) was originally touted as only requiring a single data cable to each user. It was to be the end of a separate cable for the telehone. Instead of reducing cabling costs by eliminating double cabling, it is now headed in the exact opposite direction. Weird. It makes me wonder how the brains behind this stuff decide anything.

Hal, where are you???

Dave, along those same lines....a local contract detentson facility had a full fiber optic network for their data...tried to add interior VoIP...only way to get it to work was a full second fiber network to allow the data and VoIP to work.

What did they save???

They should be saving the salary of those that were fired for not being able to make it work.