data cabling

dd1313

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Hi Guys

We moving to a new 800 m² premises and I am looking for ideas for data cabling, Wireless AP.
Would fibre be a good idea ? We also want to run a VoIp system and were thinking of PoE ?

Currently we have a server cabinet, but I am looking for better ideas.

Thanks
DD
 
typo

Hi Guys

We moving to a new 800 m² premises and I am looking for ideas for data cabling, Wireless AP.
Would fibre be a good idea ? We also want to run a VoIp system and were thinking of PoE ?

Currently we have a server cabinet, but I am looking for better ideas.

Thanks
DD

As in access points for workstations? If so how many points? Regular cat5e or cat6 should do the job fine if you implement well and will much be easier and cheaper to install than fibre.
 
As in access points for workstations? If so how many points? Regular cat5e or cat6 should do the job fine if you implement well and will much be easier and cheaper to install than fibre.

Is there a reason why cat5e is still so popular when we have Cat6, the guy @ Scoop told me , it is because of the structure of the cable , making it difficult to crimp.Any truth in that ?
 
Is there a reason why cat5e is still so popular when we have Cat6, the guy @ Scoop told me , it is because of the structure of the cable , making it difficult to crimp.Any truth in that ?

Yep, cat6 is trickier to work with but you can run longer lengths with less signal degradation. Check out the wiki pages for more info.
 
Yep, cat6 is trickier to work with but you can run longer lengths with less signal degradation. Check out the wiki pages for more info.

Besides cost, are there any other reasons not to go for fibre in an office environment ?
 
Besides cost, are there any other reasons not to go for fibre in an office environment ?

You need somebody that knows what they are doing to install it. Basically you should only really need to use fibre to connect up two or premises that are far away from each other and shouldn't need to use it in the general office environment. Then again I have no idea what your setup will be, so best would be to get recommendations from a few companies and go from there.
 
Besides cost, are there any other reasons not to go for fibre in an office environment ?

You can't jam fibre into a corner and you can't just pop an end into a port. The only real use of fibre is 10/100Gbps pipes from your servers to your routers and switches. From there Wireless-N and gigabit cats.
 
Is there a reason why cat5e is still so popular when we have Cat6, the guy @ Scoop told me , it is because of the structure of the cable , making it difficult to crimp.Any truth in that ?
It's popular to the [-]short-sighted cheapskates[/-] ... people who cheap out on CAT5 for their (what should be) long-term infrastructure cabling. And, for whatever reason, they seem not to have heard of gigabit kit, and how cheap it is. But yes, physically it's a bitch: the actual (solid) wires seem to be harder than the CAT5 ones, and then there's that blasted spacer cross-piece that bulks it out:

cat6cable.jpg
 
Give us a diagram of the premises and where you want all the points, I suggest also looking at bandwidth needed at each point. Something you need to think about is PoE has a shorter distance than for normal ethernet, you can't run Gb and PoE on a line simultaneously and you should really be going for higher end Cat6 rated for good PoE.

There are so many considerations needed before you can really make a call here as it really sucks to rip and replace infrastructure later because you made a bade design call or cheaped out in the beginning. If you don't want to put detail on the public forum you can PM me and I will give you some design pointers.

in terms of VOIP SNOM make some nice DECT VOIP handset units that might be a good idea depending on your specific requirements. Note VOIP has very specific network requirements or you can end up with some really frustrating issues. L1/L2 can be impossible to diagnose if you use bad, cheap kit.
 
You only use fibre to build a high-speed, high-capacity backbone for your network: i.e. connecting up routers, switches, and other networking equipment. Everything else then plugs into your backbone via ethernet or WiFi.

You could also run your backbone on Ethernet, but in the long run you'll be constrained to the limits of copper and the Ethernet standard. The constraints on fibre are way less - only the hardware (routers, switches, etc) needs to be replaced or upgraded to increase speeds and capacity on the backbone network. Your only limit is the speed of light. Having a fibre backbone also helps a bit with lightning protection - especially for outdoor building to building connections.

Another reason for not running fibre literally everywhere, is that 99% of consumer devices have ethernet ports and not fibre ports. If you want to do VoIP, PoE is definitely the way to go. Make sure all your switches have PoE ports, and are managed switches. You'll need to play around with QoS rules, VLANs and spanning trees to ensure that your voice traffic takes priority over other data.

VoIP definitely IS the way to go. You'd be silly to choose an analogue/digital system instead of IP. And even if you don't plan to go with VoIP, get PoE switches anyway. Build the flexilbity into your network from the start. PoE switches are great for rolling out wireless networks - all your wireless access points can be PoE enabled, reducing the amount of cabling required.

Another advantage of PoE, is that you only need to provide electricity backup / surge protection / etc at a single point, at the PoE switch. Makes things a lot simpler and easier to maintain.
 
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Give us a diagram of the premises and where you want all the points, I suggest also looking at bandwidth needed at each point. Something you need to think about is PoE has a shorter distance than for normal ethernet, you can't run Gb and PoE on a line simultaneously and you should really be going for higher end Cat6 rated for good PoE.

There are so many considerations needed before you can really make a call here as it really sucks to rip and replace infrastructure later because you made a bade design call or cheaped out in the beginning. If you don't want to put detail on the public forum you can PM me and I will give you some design pointers.

in terms of VOIP SNOM make some nice DECT VOIP handset units that might be a good idea depending on your specific requirements. Note VOIP has very specific network requirements or you can end up with some really frustrating issues. L1/L2 can be impossible to diagnose if you use bad, cheap kit.

Thank you for this information, do you know the max distance for PoE ?
 
You only use fibre to build a high-speed, high-capacity backbone for your network: i.e. connecting up routers, switches, and other networking equipment. Everything else then plugs into your backbone via ethernet or WiFi.

You could also run your backbone on Ethernet, but in the long run you'll be constrained to the limits of copper and the Ethernet standard. The constraints on fibre are way less - only the hardware (routers, switches, etc) needs to be replaced or upgraded to increase speeds and capacity on the backbone network. Your only limit is the speed of light. Having a fibre backbone also helps a bit with lightning protection - especially for outdoor building to building connections.

Another reason for not running fibre literally everywhere, is that 99% of consumer devices have ethernet ports and not fibre ports. If you want to do VoIP, PoE is definitely the way to go. Make sure all your switches have PoE ports, and are managed switches. You'll need to play around with QoS rules, VLANs and spanning trees to ensure that your voice traffic takes priority over other data.

VoIP definitely IS the way to go. You'd be silly to choose an analogue/digital system instead of IP. And even if you don't plan to go with VoIP, get PoE switches anyway. Build the flexilbity into your network from the start. PoE switches are great for rolling out wireless networks - all your wireless access points can be PoE enabled, reducing the amount of cabling required.

Another advantage of PoE, is that you only need to provide electricity backup / surge protection / etc at a single point, at the PoE switch. Makes things a lot simpler and easier to maintain.

Very detail,thank you so much
 
Besides cost, are there any other reasons not to go for fibre in an office environment ?

FO flyleads don't take kindly to abuse like copper ones do for starters. It's just not practical and makes no sense to use fiber for desktops and such things.
 
Give us a diagram of the premises and where you want all the points, I suggest also looking at bandwidth needed at each point. Something you need to think about is 1: PoE has a shorter distance than for normal ethernet, 2: you can't run Gb and PoE on a line simultaneously and you should really be going for 3: higher end Cat6 rated for good PoE.
(numbers added for clarity) ...sigh, dude; seriously!
  1. HELL no, that's complete bollocks: from the power capacity limits section, we can safely infer that PoE caters for the full 100m, it's only the available power that differs.
  2. Just ...no; that's also completely wrong; seriously.
  3. Actually (..finally!), yes; that much is potentially valid: CAT6 *is* thicker than CAT5, which means it can take more power ..and whatever you do never, ever, EVER specify that CCA rubbish for this role.
There are so many considerations needed before you can really make a call here
Well yes, starting with people who at least don't talk kak. But also because this is a capital investment type job and what you're about to spend, you want to spend *right*
as it really sucks to rip and replace infrastructure later because you made a bade design call or cheaped out in the beginning.
Indeed, cheaping out on this kind of job can come back and bite you.
If you don't want to put detail on the public forum you can PM me and I will give you some design pointers.
Actually, for my money, you should be sent back to do a lot more reading to get up to speed on that things, but I'm hardly the one to be telling the OP where to spend his money.
in terms of VOIP SNOM make some nice DECT VOIP handset units that might be a good idea depending on your specific requirements. Note VOIP has very specific network requirements or you can end up with some really frustrating issues. L1/L2 can be impossible to diagnose if you use bad, cheap kit.
Overall take-home message here: (too) cheap when building up a network can, and likely will, make you miserable and do so expensively.
 
Thank you for this information, do you know the max distance for PoE ?
Depends on the power requirements, the cable and the equipment as there are different standards and qualities.

(numbers added for clarity) ...sigh, dude; seriously!

snip

I tried to keep it simple, a lot of endpoint equipment does not work with Gb + PoE, so it is a bit of a problem if you planned for it and spent the money on switches that can provide for this. I am pretty sure this guy does is not a big spender or he would have an IT provider doing this for him...

On the PoE distance, as I said, tried to keep it simple, if you need xW you cannot necessarily get it at 100m depending on cable standards etc.

My aim was to make sure he does not just buy PoE kit because it says PoE and expect it to work at 100m because that is the maximum length (yes I know you can get longer distances and there is special kit for much longer PoE ranges, but lets try keep it simple here). In short get a good basic design within all the limits and to have no surprises later. My next suggestion was once he has an idea of what he wants to get a pro cabling company in to do the work and get a decent guarantee (pretty sure you know that badly crimped connectors can create "ghosts" later on which can be hard to diagnose).
 
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