Need help with phone & cable prewire..

[hbiss]

Generally I find those who insist that telcom and structured wiring is a horse of a different trade are those who seek to benefit by selling that idea while employing low-paid "techs" to install value-added features at prices far greater than any electrician would charge for a line-voltage device.

I think you just described a BICSI certified contractor better than I did.

Most every unique "requirement" is based on the use of the manufacturer's specified hardware to generate sales, not satisfactory system results. It's a dirty little game that real electrical contractors see right through, but upstart opportunists in the "low voltage contractor" business need to play in order to survive.

Isn't that what Leviton, Suttle and others do with their structured wiring systems? Good. I'm glad we agree. Problem is why is it OK for an electrical contractor to install these systems but not a "low voltage contractor"? Opportunist maybe?

Look, I'm the first one to agree that many separate companies that only sell and install things like home theater, home automation, structured wiring and the like, as well as every computer geek and the IT "professional" who tries to run wire or install equipment belongs in the category you describe as opportunists. Ed and I are not talking about them, they are not worthy of our discussion.

What we are talking about are trades like telecom that have evolved over better than 100 years. Telcom companies like my own or Ed's are hardly an upstart and certainly the knowledge and experience required is equal to electrical technology. I think you would agree that it really is a horse of a different color if you took the time to learn it instead of looking at some jacklegs's work or a manufacturer's catalog and saying "I can do that too".

-Hal

 

[LawnGuyLandSparky]

What we are talking about are trades like telecom that have evolved over better than 100 years. Telcom companies like my own or Ed's are hardly an upstart and certainly the knowledge and experience required is equal to electrical technology. I think you would agree that it really is a horse of a different color if you took the time to learn it instead of looking at some jacklegs's work or a manufacturer's catalog and saying "I can do that too".

-Hal

I don't believe telecom has evolved over 100 years. In fact, little has changed in the 80 years prior to the last 20. It wasn't until deregulation, and homeowners and corporate giants alike were no longer required to lease equipment from their telcos that offshoot "telecom specialists" were born. Generally, ex-telco employess without the hook to return to their monopolistic employers as independant contractors after their buyouts.

If I've worked on one trading floor in NYC I've worked a thousand, and in comparison the data work is a cakewalk you could practically train monkeys to do.

If every aspect of every trade was split off into into different "trades" using their unique features and skillset as the basis for separation, there'd be separate EC's on every job running feeders, planting switchgear, installing raceways, pulling wire, splicing out, installing layins, switch & base, etc. It's a process known all too well in the fast food industry. In the end, everything becomes a "McJob" and nobody but the contractor makes any money. And the customer doesn't save a dime, because the emphasis is to change the trade from a skilled craft requiring employees with a diverse skillset to a string of repetitive, mindless, simple tasks where the profit comes not from efficiency, but from employing low wage, low skilled, easy to train, high-turnover employees.

One obvious clue that exposes the dubious nature of this beast surfaced (in areas where licensing was required) when telco "contractors" first appeared on the scene - no license, certifications, proof of training was necessary to call oneself a "telco contractor."

 

[EV607797]

Well, I must say that electrical contractor's licenses (some restricted to low voltage) are very much the normal requirement in my area and I am all in favor of this. There's no reason why someone running low voltage wiring shouldn't be held to the same standards of anyone running any other kind of wiring. We've had these licensing requirements in the DC area for a very long time (15-20 years in some jurisdictions).

I must make one correction though. The divestiture of AT&T may have fueled today's frenzy of new systems and new technology, but independent sellers of telecommunications systems and hardware have been around for decades. It's always been legal for people to buy their own equipment from places other than leasing from the phone company as far back as the mid-1960's. The Bell companies made it difficult on the customers to buy elsewhere by charging monthly rental fees for "protective coupling equipment" to protect their network.

I worked for one of these independent sellers of hardware in 1974 and pulled my fair share of 25, 50, 75 and 100 pair cable. Independent companies, now referred to as interconnects, have been there at least as far back as the 1950's. Executone, one of the largest names in independent hardware has been around since the 1920's! They all just did their thing and didn't bother anyone.

It's all of these new "gadgets" that have hit the scene over the past ten years or so marketed under the "you can do it yourself" strategy that has created the tension and animosity among the trades.

 

[stickboy1375]

Okay, just to really throw a log on the fire, I have YET to see a professional job from a TECH sent out from the phone/cable or satellite company...

 

[EV607797]

No argument there. That's one of my biggest beefs as well. For cable TV contractors, most installations are done by contractors working on a piecemeal basis. The faster they are done, the more money they make. Pepole working for telephone companies are just lazy. The do the minimum that must be done and sometimes even less. Competitive dial tone providers are usually even worse; they hire the ones that the telephone companies won't even hire.

This original subject revolves around professional contractors who perform a certain specialty. They know what they are doing and they do it well. It's the bad eggs who work for the utility companies that give this whole subject a bad rap.

Here's an example of some quality work and maintenance by our local telephone service provider (the name begins with a V):

Now, here's an example of work done by an interconnect company that really cares about quality of workmanship:

 

[hbiss]

I have YET to see a professional job from a TECH sent out from the phone/cable or satellite company...

I might agree but by what are you judging a professional job? Keep in mind that an installation can start out being professional and go down hill depending on who gets their hands on it after that. With most anything available on the internet just about anybody can be in business with only the desire to take someones money. This is why I also strongly support licensing for low voltage and communications.

If every aspect of every trade was split off into into different "trades" using their unique features and skillset as the basis for separation, there'd be separate EC's on every job ...

Strangely enough many large ECs that are into low voltage and communications actually maintain separate divisions staffed with people trained in that trade. Doesn't local 3 even have a separate low voltage division?

Strangely enough also is the fact that the Construction Standards Master Format was change in 2004 to eliminate Division 16, electrical. New divisions remove low voltage and communications from the electrical contractor's responsibility. They now have their own divisions keeping low voltage and communications separate from electrical and putting those contractors directly under the owner or GC, the same level as the EC. The reason this was done is because the technology outpaced that of electrical contractors capabilities.

I completly agree with you that running data lines and terminating is repetitive and mindless. Train someone to do one and they can do a thousand. Finding someone to design and troubleshoot is another matter.

-Hal

 

[zbang]

I completly agree with you that running data lines and terminating is repetitive and mindless. Train someone to do one and they can do a thousand. Finding someone to design and troubleshoot is another matter.

Of course, the mindless/repetitive bit could be said for most branch circuit wiring :smile:. Pull cable, terminate to device, terminate to panel, repeat. Likewise, design & troubleshooting are difficult skills to teach, whatever the voltage (and frequency).

I'm really not sure what all the who-ha is about this. On the one hand, pulling cable is pretty much pulling cable. Terminating CAT5 to a punchblock isn't that much different than terminating 12g thhn to a large panel. They're different skills, but you can train just about anybody to do them. Learn the skills appropriate to the media and use them, but don't think that all the skills relevant to one are to another (eg: how much MV wiring skills are appropriate to doing pools).

 

[hbiss]

Right. What I am saying is that I have no one to design and troubleshoot. So whatever I install, no matter how mindless that may be I had to come up with the design first and be responsible for it after.

I'm not disputing the fact that just about anyone can pull wire and terminate correctly with minimal training and experience.

-Hal

 

[mkoloj]

I wish that over the years I counted how many electrician's have asked me how to wire a phone jack I am sure the # may astound some here.

How many offices have I been in that were supposed to be getting KSU based phone system's installed and found 1 wire on a 66 block and lots of jacks on the floor all daisy chained.
Then I ask the electrician where the rest of the cables are and he is scratching his head.


Don't get me wrong there are plenty of sparkies that know their stuff when it comes to LV work, but for everyone that does there has got to be at least a dozen head scratchers.

As for LV guys not having any pipe bending skills......I will humbly disagree.
I know of a couple of LV guys that can bend pipe right along side the best.

Landscapers, they should stick to trimming grass and bushes and botching LV lighting.

 

[stickboy1375]

I wish that over the years I counted how many electrician's have asked me how to wire a phone jack I am sure the # may astound some here.

Every phone jack I ever installed came with instructions... are theses wrong? or do people just don't know how to read?

 

[cadpoint]

Home Telephone

Home Telephone

Yap, I have to say I asked a blue wire jockey critical information when it came to routing my house. I asked for the telephone circuit requirements for my house which would be two line, wait a minute let me write that down, "no", he said. Just remember two celebrations, Christmas and Halloween. then I asked, "in that order", he said "yeah" , whats the bigger holiday, all I could say is, What Elvis Said... :roll:

http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~kurisuto/phone_wiring.html
(one of many good overviews, on home wiring)

 

[LarryFine]

Just remember two celebrations, Christmas and Halloween.

The only problem with this is that 4-wire parallel cabling (red/green and black/yellow) is out, and UTP cabling is in.

The pair order is blue/white, orange/white, green/white, and brown/white, the same as "residential" networking.

 

[George Stolz]

Yeah, but the phone jacks use the old scheme. So, it's "blue Christmas" and "orange Halloween" to terminate the phone jacks with Cat-5e cable.

Somehow, I feel vulnerable walking back into this one.

 

[mkoloj]

Every phone jack I ever installed came with instructions... are theses wrong? or do people just don't know how to read?

Most do come with instructions but you know where they end up.
The best one was at an office complex an in-house sparky came up to me and asked me how to wire a jack that looked a little too familiar to me.
Long story short....lifted it off my cart and then came up to me to ask how to connect his new phone jack..........I will bet you a nickel that it still hasn't put dial tone through it after I slyly stuck my pen in the jack.

 

[hbiss]

Every phone jack I ever installed came with instructions...

I suppose you also have to read the instructions each time you wire a duplex receptacle, right?

If you need to read the instructions you shouldn't be doing the job. Period.


-Hal

 

[LarryFine]

If you need to read the instructions you shouldn't be doing the job. Period.

To me, that is an unfair generalization. It's like saying that real men don't ask for directions.

There is plenty of equipment that I am capable of connecting and/or installing, even if I need to read the instructions.

You might consider me incompetent, but I'd be more incompetent to try to do so without reading the paperwork.

 

[stickboy1375]

Every phone jack I ever installed came with instructions...

I suppose you also have to read the instructions each time you wire a duplex receptacle, right?

If you need to read the instructions you shouldn't be doing the job. Period.


-Hal

Hal, no offense but if its a product I never used before I like to know I am installing it the correct way, but guess your just better than everyone else...

 

[brantmacga]

Yeah, but the phone jacks use the old scheme. So, it's "blue Christmas" and "orange Halloween" to terminate the phone jacks with Cat-5e cable.

george, there's a few people making phone jacks these days w/ the white-blue / blue, white-orange / orange color scheme. i've seen one that uses this but the terminal screws are colored to match the old POTS scheme. pretty clever.

 

[480sparky]

If you need to read the instructions you shouldn't be doing the job. Period.-Hal

Reading the instructions is a quest for information. Just like asking a question. I wouldn't berate someone for asking a question.

 

[LarryFine]

george, there's a few people making phone jacks these days w/ the white-blue / blue, white-orange / orange color scheme. i've seen one that uses this but the terminal screws are colored to match the old POTS scheme. pretty clever.

Leviton CAT-3 QuickPorts have both parallel and UTP coloring markers on them.