Recomendations for purchasing network gear for office

[handyman]

Since we seem to have a lot of techie types on this forum (most of which are on here while they are at work ) it seems a good place to ask.

Moving offices in August and have a cat5 network to put in place. I have a box of cable (not sure on the spec).

What I need is a good source of the wall mountable sockets and tools.

I have a VOIP / data network to install over a fairly large office and am not finding many places that sell them cheaply.

[Tightscot]

usually use a company called minitran Linkage you'll need pattress boxes, Cat5 modules, Patch panels, cat5 punch tool, cyclops wire stripper, and a cabinet or rack to stick the patch panels in...

[handyman]

Don't suppose anyone has a full height 19" cabinet going cheap?

[MovedGoalPosts]

I've used screwfix for a lot of the basics, but then I only needed surface mounted stuff, for a few network points. They wouldn't have had the variety of stuff for a bigger office.

[Tightscot]

these guys aren't bad for cabinets... Linkage

[handyman]

Originally Posted by Rob

I've used screwfix for a lot of the basics, but then I only needed surface mounted stuff, for a few network points. They wouldn't have had the variety of stuff for a bigger office.

Looking at 5 double points (1 point voip 1 point data) plus 2 wireless ap. Not a huge amount of infrastructure.

---------- Post added at 10:37 ---------- Previous post was at 09:46 ----------

I have been advised to do type B wiring for the network patch panel but my understanding was that there where coloured punch down slots that you do on the panel and the punch downs and the wiring of the patch leads was what had to be type b like below :



---------- Post added at 11:45 ---------- Previous post was at 10:37 ----------

Just in case anyone here has any advice this is what I'm going to be using.

2 broadband lines coming in, 1 into a 4 port router with wireless the other I'm going to use a basic adsl ethernet modem or might get a router not sure.

1 line is for voip and after its modem will go into a hp ml115 server with voip software.
1 line is for data/vpn and will hit our existing win 2003 server/exchange.

Both servers will be plugged into a 16 port switch and 14 ports of the switch will be wired to a 24 port patch panel with I'm assuming standard 0.5m patch cables. Rear of the patch panel will be the interface to multiple rj45 sockets around the building. Only 1 socket is required per workstation as the voip phones have a built in hub that the pc's can plug into. For ease though I'm going to put double sockets at each station so when we increase in staff I have capacity available.

I also have a spare 8 port switch which can be used to expand this a little although I'll replace all of them with a rack mount 24port switch should we need to expand a couple of years down the line.

Boss has suggested housing this in a full height server rack with lcd screen , kb, ms and kvm switch. Both servers are in normal desktop cases though the dell server is quite a beast.

Does this sound like I'm heading down the right lines, the people supplying the voip system seem to think so although I may have overstated my cabling experience

So long as I know which colours to hit on the patch panel and keystone in the wall sockets I'll be well away.

[Graham M]

Type B is more widely used but it doesn't matter if you mix Type A and B so long as you terminate each one the same at both ends as Type A and Type B are the same just with 2 pairs of wires swapped over. If you wire type B at one end and type A at the other, it becomes a crossover cable.

Type B goes White/Orange, Orange, White/Green, Blue, White/Blue, Green, White/Brown, Brown

Type A goes White/Green, Green, White/Orange, Blue, White/Blue, Orange, White/Brown, Brown

As you can surmise from this, the only 2 pairs that are actually used are the Green and Orange ones but it is normal to wire all 4 pairs up, if a wire breaks you can change the pairs used instead of doing a re-pull for instance. It is possible to run 2 devices on one wire but it is tricky as you have to separate out the 2 sets of cables into separate plugs and get them in the right slots which can be fiddly in RJ45 connectors but not so difficult on patch panels and sockets, of course you could end up with noise over long distances although I have run this successfully without problems over 20metres.

[handyman]

What about the patch panels? Do I simply go white/orange > white-orange .... from the panel to the keystone?

[altis]

The patch panel will be colour coded - you just need to make sure you're following the same scheme throughout.

This sounds similar to the installation I've put in here:

Full height 19" rack (ebay) on wheels so I can pull it out and get round the back.
STP cables come in at the bottom to 2 rows of 24-way patch panels
Above that there's a PoE switch (Netgear FS726TP) and next the wireless router (FWG114P)
Above that there the UPS (APC SmartUPS 1500 - heavy!) then a shelf with the two servers on. One runs Windows and the other CentOS and Asterisk.

Around the place we have lots of STP double sockets (eBay). Remember to number them and the patch panel!

[Tightscot]

don't forget a cable tester - like this one : Linkage

it'll tell you if individual wires are crossed or not connected etc and can save lots of head scratching, also helps with numbering!!