Inside Orlando's Terminal C, Tour at BICSI Conference

Nolan from Fortress Telecom joins Chuck to share insights from the Orlando Airport Terminal C tour at the BICSI Conference, revealing cutting-edge infrastructure innovations and valuable lessons for low-voltage professionals.

• Exploring the 100% trackable RFID baggage system using reusable sleds with RFID tags
• Behind-the-scenes look at telecommunications rooms with perfect installation practices
• Virtual tower and ramp control systems allowing operations during lightning storms
• LIDAR-based guidance systems helping pilots safely navigate without wing walkers
• Surprising applications of PON (Passive Optical Networks) in commercial settings
• The "four-layer cake" of cabling standards: NEC, TIA standards, BICSI best practices, and manufacturer specifications
• Human connections and relationships as the most critical factor in successful projects

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Chapters

• 0:00 Episode Introduction and Welcome
• 1:36 Orlando Airport Tour Overview
• 9:44 RFID Baggage System Insights
• 15:06 Telecom Infrastructure at Terminal C
• 21:38 Virtual Tower and Ramp Control
• 28:56 Cross-Industry Applications
• 32:37 The Four-Layer Cake: Industry Standards
• 52:37 Value of Industry Connections
• 54:48 Closing Thoughts and Thanks

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey, Wiremonkeys, welcome to another episode of let's Talk Cabling this episode, I'm talking about the Orlando tour held at the Bixi Conference.

Speaker 2: 0:10

Welcome to let's Talk Cabling, the award-winning podcast where knowledge is power and the low-voltage industry connects. Hosted by Chuck Bowser, rcdd. We're here to empower installers, designers and industry pros with the tips, stories and best practices you need to stay ahead. From copper to fiber, standards to innovation, this is the show that keeps you plugged into success. So grab your tools, turn up the volume and let's talk cabling.

Speaker 1: 0:45

Welcome to the show where we tackle the tough questions submitted by installers, technicians, project managers, estimators, customers, it personnel, everybody and everybody. We're connecting at the human level so that we can connect the world. If you're watching this show on YouTube, would you mind hitting the subscribe button and that bell button to be notified when new content is being produced? If you're listening to us on one of the audio podcast platforms, would you mind leaving us a five-star rating? If the show is not worth a five-star rating, shoot me an email and let me know what I need to do to make this a five-star rated show. Wednesday night, 6 pm Eastern Standard Time. What are you doing? You know I do a live stream on TikTok, instagram, linkedin, YouTube and everywhere else. I can figure out to put this show where you get to ask your favorite RCDD and you know that's me Questions on installation, certification, design, project management, even career path questions. But I can hear you now. But, chuck, I'm driving my truck. It's Wednesday night at 6pm. I don't want to get into an accident. Take a breath. I record them and you can watch them at your convenience. You can find them on let's Talk Cabling or on YouTube. And finally, while this show is free and will always remain free. If you find value in this content, would you click on that QR code right there? You can buy me a cup of coffee. You can even schedule a 15-minute one-on-one call with me after hours. Of course, you can even go to Amazon and buy let's Talk Cabling t-shirts.

Speaker 1: 2:16

So the Bixie Conference was just a couple weeks ago now, and one of the things that they had this year that I don't ever recall them having before was a field trip where you can actually go. It costs money, but they actually took you to a place to show you the cabling and infrastructure for a project. The project was the Orlando Airport, which is kind of ironic. I wanted to do it, but I actually had a bunch of other stuff I had going on at the same time. I really just couldn't do it. I've actually pulled cable at Orlando Airport. I've done work out there. I was project manager jobs out there before, but I really wanted to do it.

Speaker 1: 2:49

So what I had to do is I had to have my roving reporter, nolan, go out there and actually do the walkthrough, because I figured he's still in it. He's still fighting the battle every single day out there, pulling cable, turning cable testing cable. I'm kind of disconnected from it now. So who better to go look at it with a set of QAIs than somebody who's actually still doing the cabling work every day? You might have even seen a couple of his videos. He conducted several interviews for me at the exhibit hall, did a great job. Everybody loved working with him. Several people said hello to Nolan, how you doing? He did a great job. So welcome to the show, mr Nolan from Fortress Telecom. Nolan, how you doing, my friend.

Speaker 3: 3:33

Good, how are you?

Speaker 1: 3:34

I'm doing fantastic.

Speaker 3: 3:36

Thanks for having me on the show Chuck.

Speaker 1: 3:38

It's about time. It's about time. It's only been four years.

Speaker 3: 3:47

I was going to say I think it's been about three years that we've been wanting to do a podcast. I finally got enough together where I can actually get on camera and do this.

Speaker 1: 3:54

You had it all together three years ago. You could have done three years ago. You were just letting your own feeling of insatisfaction get in, your, your, your, your, your, your feeling of insatisfaction getting your way.

Speaker 3: 4:06

Cause I'm telling you what I was really waiting for. What I was really waiting for was a studio like yours, though that's what I was waiting for.

Speaker 1: 4:15

Yeah, how's that working out for you?

Speaker 3: 4:18

It's, it's still in progress. There you go.

Speaker 1: 4:20

See, see this. This studio looks beautiful until I turn the camera this way or that way, Then it's a total mess.

Speaker 3: 4:29

Magic TV.

Speaker 1: 4:30

Right, exactly right. So you got to do the tour over at Orlando Airport, right. And it's funny because you and I talked about it on the bus ride over to a dinner at one of the industry events afterwards and you were just like a chatty Kathy boy. You were just all super giddy about everything that you saw. I was like, dude, that's a show, that's a show. So let's start with the first question. Give us a high-level overview of the tour and what are some of the things that really impressed you on that tour?

Speaker 3: 5:04

So a high-level overview is it wasn't like a field trip from my school. It was an intense field trip. I think I had 15,000 steps and I ended the day at about 8.5 miles. So you know, we flew in from State College so we got to go through the Orlando International Airport, but we didn't go to that terminal. That's their new terminal and we've been over there once or twice just going through the people mover, but we've never been inside that terminal.

Speaker 3: 5:41

So for us to get in there and walk around and then see the behind the scenes tour of it was a really cool experience and definitely something that I would recommend to any peers in the industry that are installers, designers, project managers, anybody and hopefully you know Bixie listens to this and they do another one next year because it was limited capacity. So I think it was limited to about 50 people, but hopefully Bixie listens to this and they do another one next year to give other people an opportunity to experience that. As well as including other venues too, I think it would be beneficial to you know tour other large IT installations in the Orlando area. Orlando has a lot of attractions and big venues that have really impressive IT infrastructure behind them where it can be a real learning experience for anybody in our industry.

Speaker 1: 6:42

I absolutely agree with that 100%. You know a lot of people kind of dismiss Orlando because they think of it as a tourist town. And it is a tourist town, don't get me wrong. But I've done cabling out at Universal Studios, I've done cabling at Walt Disney World, I've done cabling at the airport and they do some pretty cool stuff. I mean, it's outside of your box. Most people they think about commercial building cabling and well, you've got to run cable from the horizontal cross connector to the work area outlet on the floor. Yeah, well, that's kind of somewhat the same for some of the projects out there. But they've got to think outside the box for a lot of stuff for those kinds of venues and stuff. And I know that Bixie does watch the show, so maybe they'll take your advice. What did you said it was limited to 50. We're all 50 seats filled.

Speaker 3: 7:31

It was. It was, it was very close. I think you know, when we had gone up to the the uh register for it, we were there probably what? Five minutes before they closed the registration. Uh, they said they had probably, I think, three or four tickets left. So it was either full or almost full.

Speaker 1: 7:50

So let's talk about some of the things that you saw that involved low-voltage design and maybe some installation insights. So the first thing I want to talk about is the RFID system for their baggage system. The airport has a 100% trackable system because of the RFID system right for their baggage system. The airport has a 100% trackable system because of the RFID, which really makes me want to fly into Orlando instead of flying in and out of Tampa all the time, except for Orlando's, an hour and a half from my house. Tampa's only 50 minutes from my house. From an installer's perspective, or maybe even an integrator's perspective, because you fill both those boots. What stood out to you about that infrastructure supporting the baggage system?

Speaker 3: 8:30

So unfortunately we didn't get a whole lot of in-depth, we didn't do a deep dive into the infrastructure of it. One of the key points that they kept telling us about this RFID baggage system was when you go to any airport and we actually even experienced this when we were leaving when you go to any airport and you're there four, five, six, seven hours early and you go to drop your bags, you have to drop your bags off or they say no, sorry, we can't take them. You have to drop them off somewhere else. What this allows them to do with the RFID bag tagging system is they can put bags in a cold storage room and unfortunately, due to time constraints when we were walking around so they had split us up into like 10 different groups and due to time constraints, we unfortunately didn't get to see the cold storage room where all the bags get shelved.

Speaker 3: 9:29

But we did get to see the conveyor systems and just looking at those conveyor systems and seeing how they operate and watching a bag roll through and go to its destination was something of the future. So it was. It was a pretty cool experience to see that and actually see it in action. So they utilize sleds. Your bag essentially goes on a sled. That sled is RFID tagged, and then one of the cool things that they can do that not a lot of other places can do is their conveyor belts are small conveyor belts, so it's constantly going on to a new conveyor system it's not just one belt system where now they're limited by the weight of how many bags that they can have on that belt to move it along, which allows them to put bags in places that other airports traditionally couldn't.

Speaker 1: 10:21

So the RFID wasn't on the bag. Then the RFID was on the sled that held the bags.

Speaker 3: 10:27

Correct. Yeah, so the bag gets loaded onto a sled and then any contents in that sled are tracked throughout the facility.

Speaker 1: 10:36

How many bags could they put on one sled?

Speaker 3: 10:38

So it's one bag per sled. Okay, it does have size constraints, so any oversized luggage has to be manually moved about the facility.

Speaker 1: 10:48

Gotcha Because I was wondering. That's a lot of expense putting an RFID device on every bag that people have when they fly through. But if you're putting it on a sled then you're reusing that same RFID over and over and over again, so it's obviously way more cost efficient. Did you happen to see the antennas for the RFIDs?

Speaker 3: 11:07

I think they were mostly in the control points. I didn't really pay attention to where those antennas were. The section that we got to experience was out on the ramp area where the bags got delivered and dropped off to, and then we also got to experience an area that had the x-ray machines to x-ray the bags.

Speaker 4: 11:30

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Speaker 1: 12:13

Now you know, a lot of our listeners are not just installers, but they're also designers and project managers. So when you looked at that whole telecommunications infrastructure over there at Terminal C, what did you see there that you also typically see in a large-scale project? And also, what did you see that was different?

Speaker 3: 12:32

One of the things that I saw that was really impressive was everything was perfect. And you know we're there. We're only in those rooms for a brief period of time, in those rooms for a brief period of time. So I'm sure if the installers who did it know, oh yeah, there's that one cable that we didn't get, or there's that one thing that we didn't quite Velcro perfectly. But when you walk in there and you see this infrastructure and you see the rooms and you know everybody has them. We're human. There's stuff that you're like oh, oh, shouldn't have cut that hole there.

Speaker 1: 13:09

I got to move it. That never happened. That never happens.

Speaker 3: 13:12

You know you're you're just making stuff and something's not quite lining up and you make it line up. Um so, but to to us, when we were there for a short time, that was there. You walk in and it looks like a Bixie book. It looks exactly how everything's supposed to be done and one of the great things for me being able to see some of this. I call it role model architecture. Right, it's the, it's the stuff that you want to build to. We've actually had some challenges with backboard and I know you and I have had a lot of conversation around this topic and you know fire ratings and fire systems Around here. Locally we cannot source AC plywood, so our supplier has CDX fire rated pyro guard, but our only other option is to purchase AC plywood and use intumescent paint on it which is a long, complicated process.

Speaker 3: 14:18

You're doing a couple of different layers and for anybody who's not familiar with the process you actually actually also have to have tooling to measure the thickness of the paint that you're laying down. It has to be actually applied to a specific thickness. So there's a lot of things that go on that we're not ready to take that risk yet and say, yep, this is painted, it's done correctly, and then at the end of the day have the confidence to get that up. So we're purchasing we're usually purchasing CD plywood which, if you're not familiar with the plywood industry, ac is grade A on the front and grade C on the back, and the grades determine how clear the plywood is Right. So Bixie calls for AC A on the front, c on the back and we can get CD. So it's C on the front and D on the back.

Speaker 3: 15:14

One thing that stood out to me was they had backboards, and I'll call out of a manufacturer here. They're called ReadySpec. First time I learned about them never heard of them before and I actually reached out to some of our distributors and they haven't heard of them either, even though they were a distributor for that specific product. So my reps said, no, we've never heard of that before, but we can certainly look into it for you. So having that product in our arsenal now is something that we can offer our clients to meet the industry best practices that Bixie wants us to have.

Speaker 1: 15:50

Yeah, just a couple things about plywood before we move on.

Speaker 1: 15:53

So a piece of plywood that's got an A grade means it's perfect, it's ready for paint, you don't have to fix anything, you can paint right away. A piece of plywood that is a C grade means it can have up to six blemishes or one knot, so it's got some defects to it and that's why the side with the defects gets mounted towards the wall. And we were talking a second ago about painting the plywood. If you actually go read the ICT Field Guides which, by the way, I recommend everybody buy a set of these it says in this book that unless you have an inspector telling you that you have to use paint on your fire retardant plywood, the recommendation for a big city is to not paint it, because the chemical that they use to treat the wood paint has a hard time sticking to it over a long period of time, so it could crack and flake and fall off. So the recommendation for the best practice is not to paint it. But as you, nolan, know, and I know the AHJ, if they say paint it, what are you doing?

Speaker 3: 16:53

we're painting it.

Speaker 1: 16:54

You're painting it Exactly right, Exactly right. One of the things you mentioned that night was you mentioned PON Passive Optical Networks and that always kind of interests me because I kind of got out of the field before the industry started doing PON a lot. What role do you think PON played in such a massive job as as the sea wing at the airport?

Speaker 3: 17:20

oh boy, um. So the pond infrastructure at the airport was probably one of the most breathtaking it was. It was one of those instances where you looked at it. Have you ever been in in a in a position where you've looked at something that somebody's done and you've had too many questions to even ask a question?

Speaker 1: 17:44

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 17:45

That was what I had walked into. So you walk in and you're kind of like oh whoa. And one of the unique things that you know my perspective of Pawn is it's for residential internet connections, it's for city internet connections, it's passive optical networking is what the carriers are doing to bring internet to customers. It's not what businesses are doing inside, you know, private space. And that was really kind of revolutionary for me to think about how we could utilize PON inside of our deployments.

Speaker 3: 18:27

And one of the questions I asked and I forget the exact answer, but it was the number was shockingly low, but it was the number was shockingly low. And I asked at what point does the size of your facility and the number of endpoints make it feasible to do pawn instead of your traditional networking? And the answer was like 200 endpoints or 7,500 square. It was shockingly low, whereas you know, when you think about Terminal C, it's massive, it's huge, there's a lot going on and there's a lot of endpoints. So it would certainly have its benefits in large facilities like that. But even coming down to the smaller facilities, you know it's something that when you're looking at the bid and you want to provide an alternative to that, it may make financial sense for them to explore other technologies, as long as it fits within the customer's requirements.

Speaker 1: 19:33

Well, there's a lot of similarities there, right? I mean you said that you've typically seen PON used for residential networks and you think about PON and residential. They would run it to the neighborhood and then each house would get its own drop. When you look at an airport, you can really consider Delta Airlines is its own place, right, united is its own place. So you've got all the different airlines and the airlines have multiple locations. They've got the ticket agents, the gate agents, then on top of that you've got the networking for all of the restaurants and stores. So it's just like having a miniature city. So I think a bond network is actually probably a wise choice for that environment.

Speaker 3: 20:18

And it's reducing the amount of switchgear you have out in the field, too. You're able to utilize passive splitters instead of having active switchgear.

Speaker 1: 20:26

Yes, absolutely, and you and I both know the most expensive part of a network is not necessarily the cabling, it's the equipment that drives that cost up.

Speaker 4: 20:36

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Speaker 1: 21:35

Let's shift our conversation. Talk about technology and innovation. Information. Let's shift our conversation. Talk about technology and innovation. One of the things that one of the standout innovations that they really were trying to talk up was their 100% virtual ramp control. Right, and could you break down what that actually meant and how did it integrate with the low voltage cabling and network design?

Speaker 3: 21:54

So this is a two to three part answer because it all kind of interoperates in with it, in with each other. So you have the there's, no, there's, there's no concept of a tower anymore at this airport. Everything the tower is actually underground, believe it or not. So, um, the field of vision is not. They don't have to worry about any obstructions anymore. Uh, it's all camera driven. They don't have to worry about any obstructions anymore. Uh, it's all camera driven. So they can put cameras in a central location like a traditional tower. But they can also add auxiliary cameras in areas where the you might not have a good field of view or would be in, uh, in, obstructed. So being able to have that ability to do that. So, being able to have that ability to do that.

Speaker 3: 22:37

And there were also talks of the ability to provide tower services for smaller airports in the region so they can connect with other airports and offer tower services for them. Oh, cool, the advantage of that is obvious. Where you know, another smaller airport might not have be able to staff a tower 24 seven, or might not have be able to staff a tower at all, you can now offer those services for that. And that all integrates with the virtual ramp control, the virtual tower, the virtual ground control, and you have at the end where the planes are pulling in. That was where you're coming in and you can see.

Speaker 3: 23:26

So they took us out on the ramp. So first they took us down into the tower, they took us over into ground control and we got to see all the fancy computers and monitors and communication systems. It was a raised floor and it was just a beautiful space. But then they also took us out onto the ramp where we could see the planes and the planes coming in, and one of the unique things that they have is the ability for pilots to guide themselves in. Now, right now, they're still using wing walkers, but they don't require wing walkers, they're still using them for safety concerns.

Speaker 3: 24:06

So wing walker is, if you're looking out the side of the plane, it's the people who are walking, waving their hands and then telling when the plane to stop. So they're actually guiding the plane in using those uh lights see, I'm so old school.

Speaker 1: 24:20

When you said wing walker, I'm thinking like the old biplane days where the guy's sitting on top of the wing and walking from one side of the wing the other, while the plane's you know a thousand feet in the air so you know florida, right, big concern with florida is lightning, thunderstorms yep, lightning and thunderstorms.

Speaker 3: 24:36

Yep, lightning and thunderstorms. So once they have a lightning uh strike within five miles everybody gets has to get off of the uh runway tarmac ramp. Anywhere that's outside you have to go inside. So that causes a problem because now the planes can't get to where they need to go and get everybody off, so they have to sit out on tarmac and then you're waiting out there and then you're missing a flight and then you're causing delays.

Speaker 3: 25:05

But now the pilots can pull up to the ramp and what actually happens is there's a guidance system and that guidance system is tracking using, I believe it's LIDAR. The guidance system is tracking the planes in and telling the pilot which way to turn and when to stop, and you can actually do this in a demo mode with a human, so it can identify and track the human. And he had it and he had put it in demo mode and he started walking down and all of us in the group were watching the display and we were watching it count down uh, how many feet left until you stopped? And you could see it, see it point them right and then point them left and then, um, when he got to five, four, three, two, one, we all turned around right as it hit one and then flipped over to zero and he was standing right on that line and that was just a really cool piece of technology.

Speaker 1: 26:05

That is cool because you know I obviously live in central Florida, I fly in and out of Tampa Airport a lot, and well, I used to. I don't fly as much, I do more virtual classes now. But you know when they first instituted that that's an FAA rule, that if you get a lightning strike within five miles everybody's got to shut down. And I can tell you there's been a lot of times where I've been trying to get out of Tampa or trying to get into Tampa, and because Florida's the lightning capital of the United States, we have between 80 and 100 thunderstorm days a year and there's been more than one time I've been delayed. So the fact that they can still do that without, you know, still have operations even though people are inside safe, that's actually kind of cool.

Speaker 1: 26:46

I like that idea. I like that idea. Let's talk about maybe some crossed industry applications, you know. So what you saw there was obviously all geared towards aviation. So some of those technologies you saw there at Terminal C, are they applicable to maybe other verticals, like maybe schools or hospitals or maybe even industrial campuses?

Speaker 3: 27:09

We yeah, we actually had so within our group. What they did was they brought us to the airport, of course, because we had to go to the airport to tour it, but then they sat us down in a conference room, so we had everybody sitting there and that was a really cool experience just by itself. You had all of the staff from the airport. They're ready to tour us around, and then you also had all of the people that were there from Bixie, the Bixie conference. You had the Bixie staff that were there facilitating, and big kudos and big thanks to them for getting all of this arranged and organized it was.

Speaker 3: 27:46

I could not imagine the monumental amount of effort required to get this done. So, again, just a big thank you to those people who put this together. But that was a cool experience being in that room, because it wasn't just installers, it wasn't just designers and it wasn't just a particular type, it wasn't just airport people right, it was everybody from every walk of life there. You had people who were in manufacturing. You had people who were in project managers, you had technicians, you had installers, you had integrators, you had people who were doing aerospace. You had people who were doing government. You had people who were doing healthcare and I think there is not one person who walked away from that day not knowing something that they didn't know, walking in.

Speaker 1: 28:44

Nice, nice. Your dad always said learn one new thing every day, son. One new thing every day. That's absolutely cool.

Speaker 1: 28:53

Now you make me really wish that I could have done this thing, man. I'm really sad that I missed out, but you know you're right. And again, kudos to Big C for pulling this off, because I remember being a contractor doing cabling out there and I remember how hard it was to get a badge, the classes I had to sit in, the things I had to learn. Like you know, you couldn't, you know you could not, absolutely could not drive your truck across an active runway. That was like a $10,000 fine and there was all different hoops you had to jump through just to be able to be on site. I couldn't even imagine the coordination, like you said I'm just confirming what you said that had to go through in order to bring a large group of 50 people into some very sensitive areas to see things like that. Let me ask you this From an installer's perspective from all the stuff that you saw, what was some of the biggest challenge you learned about deploying cabling in such a complex system?

Speaker 3: 29:53

The biggest challenge, the biggest challenge. You know, I even thinking to like my own projects. And you know we're. We're always, whenever we do a project right, we're, we're always doing the project and at the end of the project, we're we're, you know, adding it, adding everything up and saying, okay, it costs us this much in cable and it cost us this much in materials, and then we had this much in change orders. Why did we have those change orders? Could they have been prevented? Did we have overages or under allocations of material where we ended up with way more than we should have?

Speaker 3: 30:32

And we look at what took the longest amount of time. Was it running the actual cable that took the longest amount of time? Was it certifying the cable that took the longest amount of time? And what we do is we say, okay, you know what was 80% of the effort, and we take that 80% and we look at how we can optimize that. So we're constantly, you know that cycle where you know you're, you're doing the project, you're reviewing the project and then you're using that review for your next project to know it better, understand what you can do better the next time. Should we, you know, invest in a tool that's going to save us 50% of the time on certification.

Speaker 3: 31:17

And I took that moment, that time that we had there at the airport, to ask people who were on this project you know what tools, what things made the project go as smooth as possible, what saved you the most amount of time, what made you more efficient. And I was expecting somebody to give me a physical tool, I was expecting somebody to give me a software platform, and the answer that stood out the most to me was the connections. And what he meant by connections was the people that were around him. It wasn't a tool that you could buy, it wasn't a piece of software that you could use, it wasn't a communications platform that got you all together. It was the people and the connections that you knew, and that was really impactful for me.

Speaker 3: 32:15

Walking into a lot of projects, you know the projects that we're doing. We're usually getting called in last minute and it's the come save your bacon calls, where we're coming in and we're cleaning up after somebody who may have gotten kicked off the job or didn't quite finish it or didn't have the time to finish it or didn't have the resources to finish it. So we're coming in and we really don't have the connections that we should with those people, but when we leave we do, and kind of using that and knowing that and putting more emphasis on that in our projects to make those strong connections was really something that I walked away from that knowing we're going to use that in our process.

Speaker 1: 33:02

It sounds like you. You got to see a lot of things and learn a lot of lessons. It's going to help you with your own company, fortress Telecom.

Speaker 3: 33:13

Absolutely. I mean from just seeing the materials that they use there, like the ReadySpec backboard, and being able to ask the questions that we ask to the people who are on bigger projects. It's just a point that these people are on bigger projects. There's more moving pieces and the lessons that they're going to learn. That's why I watch the podcast. That's why I am a part of Bixie. That's why I'm a part of other groups on Facebook and other social networks like Reddit and everything else. We're in Discord. We're constantly looking at other people's challenges and how they're solving those challenges so that we don't have to solve them when we get to them.

Speaker 1: 33:56

Dad always said the best lesson learned is one learned from somebody else's mistake. Right, so you already talked about the biggest takeaway you got from that tour, but you also mentioned something to me on the bus that night that I want to make sure I come around and talk to, something about a cake.

Speaker 3: 34:11

Yeah, three years ago a guy named Chuck Bowser told me about this cake and I'm the kind of guy where I love cake so I paid attention tonight and he said something that was really impactful to me and it kind of gave me something to go off of and it's kind of been what we've we've been going off of the whole time. And the cake, if you're not familiar with it, is the tears and how they stack up and what's the, the tiers of importance when you're installing something and at the bottom you have the minimum specification, the minimum requirements in order to get the job done and get it done safely. This is the NEC and this makes sure that nobody dies, nobody gets hurt and everything is. This is what we've learned and the lessons that we've learned. Since when has the NEC been around? I think the 1897. 1897. 1897. 1897. Really got. They actually showed us how thick the NEC has gotten. I think it started out with like 10 or 12 pages and now it's over.

Speaker 1: 35:21

The original one, 1897, literally would fit in your pocket, and it was. I don't know how many pages it was. I know you can buy a reprint of the 1897 codebook off of eBay because I collect codebooks and so I went looking. Now you buy a reprint, but I want the original, the original 1897 code book. Ready for this $5,000. Yeah, I can't justify spending $5,000 on a book. I could spend $5,000 on maybe a fusion splicer, right, but a book. I'll have to wait until somebody's tearing down their house and they find a 1897 code book behind the wall that the electrician threw back there. It fell out of his pocket and they don't know what they have. I'll give you $20 for that. So yeah, so the first layer is the code and again for those who don't know, code is minimum quality of construction or safety. What was the next tier?

Speaker 3: 36:17

So the next tier, you have your specifications. This is your TIA. So this allows other vendors and manufacturers to interop between each other. And a lot of times when I get on site and we're certifying cable and somebody says, oh, you can't run an Ethernet cable over 300 feet, the specification says you can't run an ethernet cable over 300 feet. The specification says you can't run an ethernet cable over 300 feet. Can you do it? You can do it. You can run a thousand feet of cable on a spool. You can run 5,000 feet of cable. If you have a 5,000 foot cable shipped to you or you splice it together.

Speaker 3: 36:52

And I always remember you know one day where I was sitting in an office and one of my coworkers said to remember. You know one day where I was sitting in an office and one of my coworkers said to me you know, you can't run more than 300 feet of cable, it won't work. So I went back to the warehouse and I pulled out a thousand foot spool of cable and I found one end terminated. Found the other end terminated. It plugged my computer in and started pinging the internet and sure enough, it worked. And his face was was about as what you would expect and fortunately for me, I didn't know it at the time, but I had enough headroom and the equipment that I was using the receivers were sensitive enough to be able to get that signal to work.

Speaker 1: 37:33

Yeah, there's, there's. There's a lot of factors that go into that. Right, I mean a lot of people. You know that's like some people say well, you can't do 10 gig over CAV5E. You can, but it's got to be a really short run. And so the whole 295 is that if you keep your projects to no more than 295 feet, then you know that 99% of the projects you do you'll never have a problem. That's what that number is really kind of for. But you're right. As a matter of fact, I recorded an episode today with somebody you know, good old Mr Tyler, from to finish recording game changer cable and testing extended distances and hybrid copper fiber solutions. Yeah, the 295 is a number that if you follow it, you most likely won't have any issues. So now we've got codes for the bottom tier standards for the second tier. What's the third tier? Again, now we've got codes for the bottom tier standards for the second tier.

Speaker 3: 38:37

What's the third tier? I want to go back on standards because I get asked this question a lot, especially when we're working with general contractors who really want to know what we're doing. A lot of general contractors are really interested in what we're doing and why we're doing it. And one of the things I say to them, because I can tell people all day well, you didn't have enough headroom in the cable, or there's enough headroom that we should be able to make it, or the resistance is low enough where we'll have enough power at the end. I can say that stuff all day, but at the end of the day, if they're not electricians or they're not in the low-voltage industry or they don't have any experience with electrical work, they're not going to know what I'm talking about.

Speaker 3: 39:18

So I always like to give them an analogy of something that they they can relate to and I say it's like swimming. It's like swimming in water. And when you're looking at an ethernet cable and you say, okay, well, this ethernet cable work, is it clean and clear? And I say, okay, the way the? And I say, okay, what we're looking at is. We're looking at that nice, clean, clear pool, that crystal clear water. It's like swimming in the ocean in the Bahamas, right, that's what we want, that's the goal. Is that nice, clear, clean, crystal water that you can see 300 feet through. And I say to them you know, next from there is like swimming in a creek up in New York or swimming in, you know, a swamp right A creek in Florida.

Speaker 3: 39:59

Yeah, there you go, you can swim in it, but you're not going to see more than three or four feet, but you can swim through it fine, so it'll still work, but it's not great and most equipment will still work through that. Great, and most equipment will still work through that, and that's. That's typically what we're seeing in 80 of the cables that we're installing is it's.

Speaker 3: 40:20

It's good enough to meet those specifications and that's what we're looking for. And now, when we get the fails so when we have a cable that fails I said this is like swimming through a bog, this is like swimming through a swamp where you're not able to swim through this, or you're swimming through a mud pit. You're not able to swim through this anymore, you can't see through it, you can't swim through it and it's just a struggle to get through. And then you can see people kind of take that analogy and say all right, I kind of understand what you're saying now. And then we go back and we show them the information and we say this is your nice, clean, crystal clear pool and this is your bog and this is what we need to fix so that we can swim through it without any problems. And that really helps people understand what's going on and what we do.

Speaker 1: 41:12

You can tie that in too with the headroom conversation, and you can even show them a test result that would even kind of confirm this. You can say, okay, would you rather go swimming in six inches of water or six feet of water? Right, most people are going to say six feet of water, because six inches, your feet are going to be hitting the bottom of the pool You're not going to be able to get. Just you know, there you go, and so the red line on the test is the bottom of the pool and the squiggly lines is you. So you want as much water as you can get so you can swim, so you're not banging your knees and tearing up your toes and stuff. That'd be a good one. I'm going to have to start using that one in class. I like that yeah.

Speaker 3: 41:47

I like that. I hope more people use that analogy too, so that we kind of all understand what's going on. Any time where I can break something down from a complex subject into something that everybody can understand really makes it easy to communicate.

Speaker 1: 42:03

I know somebody else who does that too. I can't remember who it is, so you'd ask the next question. So now we've got the codes and we've got the standards. So those are the two layers of the cake. What's the third layer?

Speaker 3: 42:17

So the third layer of the cake is best practices. This is Bixie, this is the people who have been doing this since the dawn of time have come together and say listen, we don't like it when we do it this way, we can do it this way, but we don't like it when we do it this way, we can do it this way, but we don't like it when we do it this way, and it really doesn't turn out well for us. And then when we go and change that, it's really difficult to do. So what we're going to do is we're going to have a way to do it so that it's nice and easy, and then when we go and change it, it's ready for us to change. So the those best practices really make our jobs and everybody else's job way easier at the end of the day. And that's that's really when I started into the low voltage industry and give people a little background into where I came from and where I am now I'm.

Speaker 3: 43:16

I was 15 years, a keyboard warrior. I was behind the computer, I was programming routers and switches, I was answering the phone, I was doing help desk, I was doing retail sales for computers for a while, and I was always afraid of low voltage. I never really liked it and I was never really good at it. I actually remember one day I was working on a job doing low voltage. I never really liked it and I was never really good at it. I actually remember one day I was working on a job doing low voltage. I was pulling cable. I got done at the end of the day and my boss got a call and it was the customer. They had kicked me off of the job site and told me that I wasn't allowed to go back to the job because it was that bad. And you know. Back to the job because it was that bad and you know, um?

Speaker 3: 44:00

So I started Fortress Telecom in 2020 and we started originally as an it company for small businesses, and one of the things I quickly understood was we could never be a good it company unless we had that good foundation. We had that good layer, one cabling in the walls. Without that cabling, we're going to look bad every day because we're going to be trying to support infrastructure. That's not good, it's not up to codes, it's not up to standards, it's not up to best practices and we're going to be troubleshooting stuff that we can't fix.

Speaker 3: 44:33

So we have to do low voltage and a lot of IT companies don't do that and a lot of low voltage companies don't do IT, which makes us very unique in the fact that we do both. So we see both sides of that and we're able to. Our goal is always to be able to design, install and support so that we have full control over the entire process. We're installing and designing the stuff that we want to support and that's a beautiful thing to be able to do that. And actually today we're on a project that you know is a design build project that hopefully we'll be supporting through the lifetime of the customer.

Speaker 1: 45:13

And that's where your profit is. Your profit's in recurring things right, getting to go back and do stuff over. You know, update software switches and update cabling and stuff like that. That's where your true profits are.

Speaker 3: 45:25

Yeah, and you know that's where I came from. So, stepping into low voltage, I decided to make low voltage a career and I was ungodly afraid of it. And you know we've had this conversation time and time since the uh the conference. You know me going and helping you out with uh, doing the interviews with people. That was my step into low voltage.

Speaker 3: 45:51

That was cause I've always been afraid of talking on camera and that may have been one of the reasons it took me three years to get on a podcast, but I've always been afraid of talking on camera and that may have been one of the reasons it took me three years to get on a podcast, but I've always been afraid of the camera and I knew for me, in order to do that, that I had to just step into it. I had to face the sharks, right and Bixie. Fortunately, you know I've been there a couple of years and I've made some really strong relationships there and when you walk into that exhibit hall you walk into a bunch of friends and it's a very safe space. So it was a good space for me to to have that, the opportunity to do that. You know, walk up with somebody and I think we had a couple of outtakes that snuck into.

Speaker 1: 46:33

I don't know where this came from. That's what happens when you forget to turn off the record button.

Speaker 3: 46:41

At the end of the day, it was an experience and being able to take something that you're afraid of and I think this is a good life lesson to anybody being able to take something that you're afraid of and put yourself into that situation because you know other people are doing it, and if you can surround yourself by people who support you and people who have confidence in you, you're going to succeed. So that's, you know, that's it's. There are people that will help you and that's a that's a beautiful thing.

Speaker 1: 47:21

You just have to let you in on a secret. I don't like being in front of the camera either. That's the honest God truth and and and. My story my story is very similar to yours. You probably heard me tell it on the podcast before my day job sent me to corporate to film a bunch of stuff and I did so horrible they couldn't use any of it because I was so nervous being in front of a camera and I just said you know what? I'm going to face this head on, and I actually created actually other YouTube channels first that I don't want to keep up with anymore. I'm now the focus on let's talk cable. But it got me in front of the camera and you know the practice, practice, practice. That's. That's what it boils down to. So so there you go. So now we got going back to the cake. I don't want to lose track here. My ADHD is kicking in right.

Speaker 1: 48:07

The bottom layer is the standards. The next layer was the Bixie best practices, or, well, best practices. There's more than just Bixie, but Bixie is most well known. What was the top layer?

Speaker 1: 48:22

So I always thought it was a three-layer cake and somebody I knew and I always explained it as a three-layer.

Speaker 3: 48:26

Somebody I knew told me that it was a three-layer cake. So I always believed it was a three-layer cake. So we walk in and we're all seated down in this conference room and they're giving us the PowerPoint presentation. The whole project start to finish and one slide came up and the guy that was there doing the presentation asked a question. He said you know what's after Bixie? What's the next step? Who is the final say-all? And it can be the AHJ at the end of the day.

Speaker 3: 49:02

But he said something that I will never forget and I was so excited to tell everybody because I've never heard it before. I know a lot of people haven't heard it before and it kind of clicked to me. One of the things that we had really struggled with when we were starting low voltage and building out you know what? What vendor and what manufacturer are we going to choose for our equipment was I could read the NEC and I could know what to do and I could read the standards and I could know how they worked, and I could read Bixie and know what not to do. But some things were missing and this is where I reached out to the community to try and grasp at straws and figure out how to dress cable and make it look pretty. But at the end of the day, I didn't realize this because we were. We were actually doing it. We just I just didn't know that we were doing it. We were choosing vendors and manufacturers that provided quality, easy to read and easy to consume instructions for their products.

Speaker 3: 50:17

And he said the answer to the question that he asked is what's next after Bixie? What's that next step up? How do you get better than Bixie? You follow the manufacturers best practices and recommendations, you follow the installation instructions, and that really clicked in me and it had a big impact and I looked back at what we had been doing the past three, four years that we've been doing this and I looked back at what vendors and manufacturers we've chosen are all vendors and manufacturers that have really good documentation on their product and how to do that. We can order a part from China and it costs us pennies on the dollar and you get that part and there's minimal instructions and the translations are not all that great and it might not work super good, but you save the customer a lot of money.

Speaker 3: 51:23

But you spent 10 hours installing it and trying to figure out how to how to make it work. And you know, I remember a couple years ago I asked in one of the groups online. I said how do you guys put the this high-end equipment, this really expensive equipment, into your bids? Like, how are, how are you getting that to go through? And somebody said it's all in the labor savings. If I spend $300 more on a product but I'm saving $400 in labor, I'm profiting $100 from that. And that was pretty impactful to me. So we were able to take that and now we're using high-end equipment in our installations and at the end of the day you look at it and when it's done you go oh, that looks good and that's going to get you more customers right, because the customer sees that Customers talk to each other.

Speaker 1: 52:20

When the healthcare people go to the healthcare conference, they sit at the same tables and they say you know, we're thinking about getting our network done. Hey, this Fortress Telecom man, they do a great job. That's the best way to start off getting a customer is having another customer recommend you because you're using good quality products, and I like that. You said manufacturing structure, because you're absolutely right. There's a manufacturer out there I won't say who it is, I'm going to start with. The standard says that you can untwist up to half of an inch for Cat 5E, cat 6, and Cat 6A. There's a manufacturer out there that says, yes, a half inch for 5E or 6, but a quarter of an inch for CAT 6A. So they're exceeding what the standard says. So if you want the warranty from that company, you've got to terminate the way they want to terminate. So you're right. I'd always left that fourth layer off the cake until you and I had that conversation that night, and now I always add it on there. So see, I learned something from you. I learned something from you.

Speaker 3: 53:18

And it, you know, it makes perfect sense. They're the ones that are manufacturing the products, they're the ones that know how it's intended to be used, so why not listen to them? And that that was that. That was huge.

Speaker 1: 53:31

Nolan, again, thank you so much for for all that you did for me at the Bixie Conference. Thank you for going on the tour. Thank you for coming on the podcast tonight first time in four years and getting over your fear of being in front of the camera. You're a valued peer and a valued friend.

Speaker 3: 53:49

I really appreciate you having me on the podcast and I even more so appreciate the opportunity that you gave me, being able to go around and interview everybody, and it was. It was as much a big help to me as it was a big help to you, and I hope that people who are watching this had had a good time, especially watching the outtakes. Maybe there'll be more of them if we do this again, Um, but uh, you know, I I hope that, uh, that it was. It was helpful to the ICT community to to be able to be there without being there, and you know experience some of those. It was only short, 30 seconds, but it was enough to tease you and get you to come. Maybe we'll meet in person.

Speaker 2: 54:28

Thanks for listening to let's Talk Cabling, the award winning podcast where knowledge is power and the low voltage industry connects. If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review and share it with your crew. Got questions or ideas for the show? Chuck wants to hear from you. Stay connected, stay informed and always aim for excellence. Until next time, keep those cables clean, your standards high and your future bright. Let's Talk Cabling empowering the industry, one connection at a time.