Costs of installing cables for ADSL

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ACTPerformance

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Hi

Im living in an estate that only recently installed Telkom lines.

They have run the lines to our manhole and we have to arrange with an electrical company to run cables from the man hole to our house.

I informed the estate mamanger and he refered me to some unqualified electrician who wants to chare me R1800.

I told him it sounds a bit excessive and he asked me how much I wanted to pay. Given the opportunity, I lowballed him and offered R800.
He said that would not even cover the costs of the cables.

The distance is 25m for some heavy duty cable to run underground and 10m of the normal telkom cable.
Can anyone shed some light on costs of these cables. I cannot think it would cost so much.

To run the cable should not cost much as we have cable trunking (looks like a vacuum machine hose or pool cleaner hose)running from the manhole to our house, so its probably just a matter of using some routing tool to run the cable.
 
Just go buy some Ethernet cable and run it yourself, its not too difficult if there is already conduit there, else ask a Telkom Techie on the side of the road how much they would charge
 
Where do you stay general area ??
Is there a draw wire in the conduit ?
Telkom will have a spec. for the cable that has to be in the manhole basically underground cable.
Look in the man hole and see what is there and do it your self . what ever you do dont use CCA network cable.
 
Hi

Please see pic above.

Ok SO Im assuming the conduit is the 2 black pipes just below his hand.

And a draw wire is something used to pull the wires to the other side. If thats the case, then no, there is no draw wire.

This is the manhole.
 
I think that's the Telkom conduit, I think yours will be like the green pipe on the right
 
One of those black pipes runs to my house. Ok, Im going to find one of those telkom guys and see what they say.
 
Try push the cable from your house and see where it pops out in the manhole if that's possible
 
You should not be messing with that joint. Your neighbours could become pretty angry if their services go faulty!
 
ACTPerformance said:
One of those black pipes runs to my house. Ok, Im going to find one of those telkom guys and see what they say.
Click to expand...

You need some way of getting a draw wire into the black pipes, in order to be able to get a real cable through. Using a relatively stiff wire will enable you to "push" it, without it simply collapsing on itself. Once the draw wire is in, simply tie the real cable onto the end, and pull the draw wire out again.

You should be able to find some relatively stiff galvanised wire at a hardware. Or, if the distance is not too great, look for a Fish Tape, which is the "correct" thing to use, but somewhat more expensive, if you are only ever likely to use it once.

With regards to the cable itself, I don't think it needs to be special "underground cable", but probably plain old cat5 is also not quite the right thing to be using. If nothing else, you are wasting money laying more cores than you really need. POTS only needs 2 cores, while cat5 has 8.
 
RoganDawes said:
You need some way of getting a draw wire into the black pipes, in order to be able to get a real cable through. Using a relatively stiff wire will enable you to "push" it, without it simply collapsing on itself. Once the draw wire is in, simply tie the real cable onto the end, and pull the draw wire out again.

You should be able to find some relatively stiff galvanised wire at a hardware. Or, if the distance is not too great, look for a Fish Tape, which is the "correct" thing to use, but somewhat more expensive, if you are only ever likely to use it once.

With regards to the cable itself, I don't think it needs to be special "underground cable", but probably plain old cat5 is also not quite the right thing to be using. If nothing else, you are wasting money laying more cores than you really need. POTS only needs 2 cores, while cat5 has 8.
Click to expand...

Cool let me look into this.
 
MickeyD said:
You should not be messing with that joint. Your neighbours could become pretty angry if their services go faulty!
Click to expand...

No one else has services in our side of the estate. Its just been installed and thats the "qualified" techie.
 
RoganDawes said:
You should be able to find some relatively stiff galvanised wire at a hardware. Or, if the distance is not too great, look for a Fish Tape, which is the "correct" thing to use, but somewhat more expensive, if you are only ever likely to use it once.
Click to expand...

Pro tip, if using galvanised wire, bend the end over so that it has a rounded end, which will help to stop it catching on things. Also, wrapping the folded over bits with electrical tape will stop things from coming undone when you haul on them.

With regards to stiffness, it needs to be able to sustain pressure to get the full length through the pipe (taking friction into account), while still being flexible enough to go around curves as necessary. If the pipe was laid intelligently, there should be no corners which can be near impossible to get around with just a bit of galvanised wire. Also, you may find it easier to start at one end rather than the other, based on what is around you, room to work, proximity to bends in the pipe, etc, etc, etc. i.e. if you are struggling from one end, try the other :-)
 
RoganDawes said:
Pro tip, if using galvanised wire, bend the end over so that it has a rounded end, which will help to stop it catching on things. Also, wrapping the folded over bits with electrical tape will stop things from coming undone when you haul on them.

With regards to stiffness, it needs to be able to sustain pressure to get the full length through the pipe (taking friction into account), while still being flexible enough to go around curves as necessary. If the pipe was laid intelligently, there should be no corners which can be near impossible to get around with just a bit of galvanised wire. Also, you may find it easier to start at one end rather than the other, based on what is around you, room to work, proximity to bends in the pipe, etc, etc, etc. i.e. if you are struggling from one end, try the other :-)
Click to expand...

Thanks, I was thinking what would be the most cost effective way.
I thought of the plumbers snake thing. I even though of tying a piece of string to a soft stress ball and fitting it on one side and trying to flush it out the other side witha high pressure hose.

Judging by the angle of the piping, it looks pretty straight.

Think the galvanised building wire will work perfectly.
I will give it a try.

And Thanks.
 
RoganDawes said:
Pro tip, if using galvanised wire, bend the end over so that it has a rounded end, which will help to stop it catching on things. Also, wrapping the folded over bits with electrical tape will stop things from coming undone when you haul on them.

With regards to stiffness, it needs to be able to sustain pressure to get the full length through the pipe (taking friction into account), while still being flexible enough to go around curves as necessary. If the pipe was laid intelligently, there should be no corners which can be near impossible to get around with just a bit of galvanised wire. Also, you may find it easier to start at one end rather than the other, based on what is around you, room to work, proximity to bends in the pipe, etc, etc, etc. i.e. if you are struggling from one end, try the other :-)
Click to expand...

Thanks, I was thinking what would be the most cost effective way.
I thought of the plumbers snake thing. I even though of tying a piece of string to a soft stress ball and fitting it on one side and trying to flush it out the other side witha high pressure hose.

Judging by the angle of the piping, it looks pretty straight.

Think the galvanised building wire will work perfectly.
I will give it a try.

And Thanks.
 
FYI, I got a quote for CAT5 cables R2.68 per m ex vat. So I think I just avoided getting screwed over.
 
Hi all, related to this tread.
Since Telkom has canned my wimax I need to see if I can ADSL. Now my property does not have a phone but there is a conduit going to the manhole. When I wanted Dsl Tekom indicated it is my responsibility to get the line to the manhole.
I have fishtape but I do not think it would be long enough since it is about 30 meter to the conduit
 
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