Originally posted by: cmetz
noreaga0221, many of the cheaper crimp connectors don't give good NEXT quality and won't really work for gigabit. Many of the cheaper crimpers suck and won't make good connections for gigabit. Also, there are some common termination mistakes you can make, like not maintaining the twist as close to the connection as absolutely possible, or getting the pairs too uneven.
In general, you really just shouldn't make your own cables anymore. Machine made cables are high quality and cheap. I've seen too many problems - especially subtle problems - caused by hand made cables. It's just not worth it. Cables are cheap, man-time is not, down-time is not.
>i work for a small ISP that provides wireless internet access to some rural areas in kansas and theyve got us making cables from the SMs into the customer homes
How long are these cables? If they're any rational standard length, this is a bad idea - just go buy some machine made cables. If they're a very long custom run, then it might be appropriate.
cant recall ever doing one fewer than 40 feet, and weve done a couple that might be pushing 150 or so.
come to think of it, i did one a few weeks ago that had to be about 200' (went from a server rack inside,to the outside of a building, onto the roof, across the roof, and 100' up a tower to an AP) which is probably the longest ive ever made.
weve never had problems with the cables, unless one gets nicked or gnawed-on by something, but reliability has never been an issue. as for them being good enough to push 1Gbps....i have no idea, we dont use anywhere *near* that kind of bandwidth on the cables I make, and never will. I would imagine they wouldnt handle it, if they can be so finicky.
thing is, with a factory cable, wed have to put a significantly larger hole in a customer home. as it is, a 1/4" hole is all we need since i cap the ends after we run the wire. some customers want the connection where the pc is, and nowhere else, or running it somewhere discreet enough to hide the larger hole would be impractical considering where we have to connect to their pc.
like i said though, if someone has some links, id be interested in reading on proper cable preparation and termination, etc just for the hell of knowing about it.
In that case, since you're professionals - RIGHT? - you'll be using a cat5e cable scanning tool to certify that cabling run to be within spec. Because the "gee, it seems to be working" test is not good enough.
I wish. Know how I got into this? I worked for a satellite guy. He was doing the installs for the WISP, took a job with their sister company as Sales Manager for their VOIP service, and needed someone to go with his son to do the installs. Id been doing the satellite stuff with him, and convinced him I could better do the job than the "computer guy" he had, who can, to his only credit, handle the basic networking/troubleshooting required to do the installations.
There are a number of things they do that arent professional. some theyre working on fixing, others they arent. I have *no* testing tools. Thats on the list of a number of concerns Ive had with the company. But, right now, it pays the bills. Ive suggested things a number of times, and get ignored.
They dont stock up on our SMs (we have to regularly reschedule customers due to lack of equipment, either because someone didnt order enough, or whoever were getting this stuff from doesnt *have* enough), theyve got 2 LOS APs of differing frequencies on a couple of towers, without any 900mhz system that can handle some of the foliage I run into. Im baffled by this, as I havent even been doing this that long and that makes *no* sense to me.
They dont stock up on routers, wireless adapters, NICs, etc, that they should have, they are, in some respects, massively disorganized (and since i dont get paid extra for suggestions, and the few I give out are ignored, I stopped bothering)
Somehow it all works. Customers are happy, the service is reliable, and theres no shortage of orders for new installs.
for customers, it works. behind the scenes, its a mess. it pays my bills, so its what im doing right now.