Just to vent to people who will understand

[14049752]

NO COMMENT

 

[mmerry]

 

[Blues]

Don't let your dongles dangle

 

[Sky-Knight]

I did a ton of those back in the day when two 10/100s was better than a single gigabit link.

But they aged like milk, zero need for that today.

 

[Computer Bloke]

For the benefit of those of us who don't understand - what are we looking at here?

 

[mmerry]

Back in the day (10/100) you could use one data line for both data and phone. Pull the blues out and patch those for a phone and the others patch for your data.

 

[14049752]

For the benefit of those of us who don't understand - what are we looking at here?

These are fairly new (within the last few years) data runs, done by our facility management electricians. Instead of pulling two lines, they pulled one and split to two data jacks. One was split to two rj-45 ethernet jacks, another was split to an rj-45 and an rj-11. The justification was "it works".
I'm just annoyed every time I find something like this. The cabling where I work is a mixture of ancient (token ring, adapted to ethernet), newer construction (cat5, cat6), and lazy, barely working, "good enough for government" crap like this.

 

[Markverhyden]

These are fairly new (within the last few years) data runs, done by our facility management electricians. Instead of pulling two lines, they pulled one and split to two data jacks. One was split to two rj-45 ethernet jacks, another was split to an rj-45 and an rj-11. The justification was "it works".
I'm just annoyed every time I find something like this. The cabling where I work is a mixture of ancient (token ring, adapted to ethernet), newer construction (cat5, cat6), and lazy, barely working, "good enough for government" crap like this.

The operative word is electrician. In the US they're governed by the NFPA 70 National Electrical Codeas enforced by county and city/town inspectors. As one electrician bluntly told me when I was trying to explain why he should follow IEEE, etc codes "I don't give a cr@p about I triple ch!t or anything else. As long as what I do is not illegal I'll do whatever I want as long as it works"

That being said I've cut corners before when there was no other choices short of ripping up concrete and walls to run new conduit. Even mixed colors just to get 3 working pairs. Just a reminder. While 2 pair is not an official 1g connection I can regularly get 800-900 with Cat5e. These days I only use Cat6 unless someone specifies 5e. I've still got a few partial boxes lying around of that stuff.

 

[Blues]

I wouldn't use an electrician who said "as long as its up to code and works I'm not changing my way" They can quote their way and if the customer ask for IEEE then do it and charge accordingly if it does cost more.

 

[timeshifter]

I remember working at a wealthy client's home years ago, his electrician was there doing things, including a couple of network runs. I mentioned some of the "rules" for CAT5e and his response was that he didn't worry about that too much and proceeded to wrap the network cable around a door knob three or four times.

 

[britechguy]

I wouldn't use an electrician who said "as long as its up to code and works I'm not changing my way" They can quote their way and if the customer ask for IEEE then do it and charge accordingly if it does cost more.

I'd imagine that, like most of us, they'll quote what they would typically do. If the client specifies something else, and they're capable of doing it, then the quote gets adjusted in light of that request.

But who among us isn't quoting "doing what I do my way?" Most clients hire us because they don't understand anything about what needs to be done, and they are at the mercy of the tech doing the work.

 

[HCHTech]

But who among us isn't quoting "doing what I do my way?"

I mean, of course - right? Except my reputation stands on "my way" for all of my clients. When I bring in a contractor (usually to pull wires) I make sure they understand in no uncertain terms how I want it done. They are gone in a day, I (and my client) have to live with the results. I don't know how folks who cut corners so casually stay in business, I really don't.

 

[Sky-Knight]

It's quite simple, this way only gives you two 100 mbit lines, and will not certify for gigabit speeds. The solution is to ensure the statement of work includes the requirement to certify the lines at 1gbit. Then they can pull this crap anymore, without being forced to rework things because again, the CONTRACT says, it will work at gigabit speeds. Which this configuration cannot.

So again, do not ask for 2 network connections, ask for 2 GIGABIT network connections. Because if that's on the SOW, and it doesn't work at that speed... it's now their problem.

 

[NETWizz]

Must be the telephone goons.

Usually when I hear from them it is "Two of the phones [out of 400] aren't working. We need you to check the routing." Of course these request is usually forwarded through someone else who now immediately thinks the phone expert knows all and diagnosed a problem with our network.

Usually my reaction is to shrug and respond telling them the other 398 phones on the same subnet/VLAN wouldn't work if there was a "routing" problem. *of course this is completely over their head because they haven't the slightest idea how routing works*

Basically, these are the same guys who have no idea how to troubleshoot anything VoIP and grasp at straws and blame the network without first doing some troubleshooting or investigation. That said the above probably isn't VoIP it doesn't even have enough pairs to do PoE.

 

[14049752]

That said the above probably isn't VoIP it doesn't even have enough pairs to do PoE.

Two of the connections pictured have a phone and PC, per jack. Power injectors installed on client end. So yeah, you touched on another reason why this is so incredibly stupid to have wired like this (we had voip when these were wired!!!!)