The network is now as much a part of a building as the power. Phones, tills, printers, cameras, door controllers, Wi-Fi, the practice management system and the kitchen order screen all run over it, and when it is badly installed every one of them is unreliable in a way that is hard to pin down. We install structured cabling and the network hardware on the end of it for offices, clinics, hotels, shops and industrial units across Birmingham and the West Midlands, tested, labelled and documented.
What we do
- Structured cabling: Cat6 and Cat6A copper from patch panel to outlet, in the containment and with the separation from power that BS EN 50174 requires, terminated, tested and labelled at both ends.
- Fibre: single-mode and multi-mode between buildings, floors and cabinets, fusion-spliced, with OTDR results where the run justifies them.
- Comms cabinets: new cabinets sized and positioned sensibly, with power, ventilation and cable management, and the rebuild of existing cabinets that have become a wall of unlabelled patch leads.
- Network hardware: PoE switches, routers and firewalls, configured with VLANs for voice, data, guest Wi-Fi, CCTV and building systems, and documented so that your IT provider can take them over.
- Wi-Fi: a survey, access points placed where the signal needs to be rather than where the ceiling tile was easy, and a guest network separated from the business one.
- Outlets for everything else: the data points for cameras, access controllers, meeting room screens, tills and wireless access points, planned with the electrical first fix so the walls are opened once.
Why one contractor for power and data
On most fit-outs the electrician and the data installer never meet. Each runs its own containment, each wants the ceiling open on a different week, and when a port does not work nobody is sure whose fault it is. Because we do both, the tray is designed once with power and data on the agreed separation, the outlets are planned together on the same drawing, and the first fix for both happens in the same visit. It is quicker, it is cheaper, and there is one phone number afterwards.
Testing and documentation
Every copper link is tested with a certified field tester to its class and every fibre link with a light source and power meter or an OTDR. The results, the cabinet layout and the outlet schedule are handed over as a PDF, and the labels on the panel match the labels on the drawing. A patch panel without a test report is a guess, and a cabinet without labels costs somebody an afternoon every time something changes.
Standards and equipment
Cabling is designed and installed to BS EN 50173 (the performance of the cabling) and BS EN 50174 (how it is installed, including separation from power), with the electrical side to BS 7671. We are not tied to one hardware manufacturer; we specify switches and access points to the size of the site and the budget, and we will work with the equipment your IT provider prefers.
Often done with
CCTV and access control, both of which run over the same cabling and switches, and an electrical fit-out, where the data is planned with the power from the first drawing.