But it's a mistake to assume that just because network signals are electrical, any electrician is automatically qualified to put a network together.
This can't be stressed enough, especially when running horizontal cabling through buildings. We've had issues in taking ownership of network infrastructure that was installed by "reliable" electricians.
Some advice: Make sure that you keep a decent bend radius on the connections and that you're able to sustain (near) peak transfer over the connection. Cable testers and certifiers add to the confidence that you've got a solid connection. Modern switches will also report on CRC errors and issues that come from physical layer problems.
I once worked in an optics lab that had been really well planned. Each bench had network connections and optical fiber connections that go to each bench in each room of the lab. The idea was that you could build something in one room and send it's output to another room just by using the right fiber port on your bench. No need to string fiber optics along the floor and through doors!
Planning was undone by execution unfortunately. The installers claimed they had worked with fiber optics before and could do a great job. They installed the cat5 cables with such tight turns that only half of them work. The fiber optic cables had the same tight turns, and fiber is more sensitive to bends. The loss between benches just 4 meters apart is in excess of 30 dB! Totally unusable for practically all experiments.
Having diagnostics on the switch can be a big plus. I wired a long run, partly underground, myself, and it was erratic. I had two parallel cat5e lines, and I could only use one.
After I got the better switch, it was able to tell me approximately how far along the cable the fault was, which was enough to narrow down the problem. I checked bend radius and re-terminated, and problem solved.
So nice to work with good equipment. It turns voodoo into engineering.
Comments
But it's a mistake to assume that just because network signals are electrical, any electrician is automatically qualified to put a network together.
This can't be stressed enough, especially when running horizontal cabling through buildings. We've had issues in taking ownership of network infrastructure that was installed by "reliable" electricians.
Some advice: Make sure that you keep a decent bend radius on the connections and that you're able to sustain (near) peak transfer over the connection. Cable testers and certifiers add to the confidence that you've got a solid connection. Modern switches will also report on CRC errors and issues that come from physical layer problems.
I once worked in an optics lab that had been really well planned. Each bench had network connections and optical fiber connections that go to each bench in each room of the lab. The idea was that you could build something in one room and send it's output to another room just by using the right fiber port on your bench. No need to string fiber optics along the floor and through doors!
Planning was undone by execution unfortunately. The installers claimed they had worked with fiber optics before and could do a great job. They installed the cat5 cables with such tight turns that only half of them work. The fiber optic cables had the same tight turns, and fiber is more sensitive to bends. The loss between benches just 4 meters apart is in excess of 30 dB! Totally unusable for practically all experiments.
Having diagnostics on the switch can be a big plus. I wired a long run, partly underground, myself, and it was erratic. I had two parallel cat5e lines, and I could only use one.
After I got the better switch, it was able to tell me approximately how far along the cable the fault was, which was enough to narrow down the problem. I checked bend radius and re-terminated, and problem solved.
So nice to work with good equipment. It turns voodoo into engineering.