Nobody has ever been excited about cabling. It is invisible, it is disruptive to install, and it does not appear in any demonstration. It is also the one part of a network that lasts fifteen years and quietly sets a ceiling on everything above it.
Most offices do not need a rewire. The ones that do usually show at least two of the following four signs.
The cable is from an earlier era
Cable grades have moved on several times. An office wired a long time ago may have cable that was generous then and is the narrowest point now.
The symptom is a building where the internet connection was upgraded, the switches were replaced, and nothing got noticeably faster. If the money has gone in at both ends and the middle was never touched, the middle is the answer.
Check the printing on the cable itself where it enters the cabinet. It says what it is.
The sockets are in the wrong places
Offices move furniture more often than they move walls. A layout planned for one arrangement of desks ends up serving another, and the gap is filled with extension leads, small switches under desks and cables taped across floors.
Each of those is a fault waiting to happen and a trip hazard in the meantime. If somebody has to think about where to sit because of where a socket is, the building is working around its cabling rather than the other way round.
Everything goes through one point
A single switch, a single uplink, or one run of cable through a ceiling that carries the whole floor. It works perfectly until the day it does not, and then nothing works at all.
This is worth fixing even when speed is fine, because it is the difference between one person being affected and everybody being affected.
The same question applies to the cabinet. A cupboard with no ventilation, sharing a room with a kettle, is a slow failure in progress.
Nothing is labelled
If tracing a single fault starts with somebody unplugging cables to see what goes dark, you are paying for the lack of a record every time anything breaks.
Labelling is not a rewire. It is an afternoon, and it often reveals how much of the existing cabling is fine, which can turn a rewire into a partial one.
What a rewire actually involves
A survey of what exists and where it goes. Agreement on where sockets should be for how the building is used now, with room to spare. Installation, usually out of hours. Testing every outlet and a certificate that says what each one achieved.
Insist on the test results. Cable that is installed badly, bent too tightly or run alongside power, performs below its grade, and the only way to know is the test.
How to phase it if the whole job is too much
You rarely have to do everything at once. The order that gives most benefit first is usually this.
- The links between cabinets and between floors, because everything crosses them.
- The cabinet itself, including ventilation, power and labelling.
- The cabling to the wireless access points, which is a cabling job dressed as a wireless one.
- Desk outlets, floor by floor, in whatever order suits the business.
Doing the first two often removes the symptom people were complaining about, which buys time for the rest.
What to ask for in a quotation
Cabling quotations vary enormously for what looks like the same job, and the difference is usually in what is left unsaid.
Ask for four things explicitly. The grade of cable being installed, in writing. A test result for every outlet, not a sample. Labelling at both ends and a plan showing what connects where. And making good afterwards, meaning who fills the holes and repaints.
Also ask what happens if a route turns out to be blocked. In an old building at least one will be, and the difference between a contractor who has priced for that and one who has not shows up as a variation halfway through.
Do it when the building is open anyway
The cheapest time to cable is when ceilings are already down for something else. A refurbishment, a move, new lighting, an air conditioning install.
If any of those are planned in the next year, bring the cabling conversation forward and have it at the same time. Doing it separately costs more and disrupts twice.
We survey and plan this work for the organisations we support. There is more on our networks and infrastructure page and on projects and consultancy. If you are not sure whether your cabling is the constraint, tell us what the symptoms are and we will say what we would check first.