AHL: AI Vs Manual Estimating In Cabling

We answer rapid-fire questions from the field on AI estimating, fiber adoption, data center density, and what owners really notice when they walk a finished job. We keep coming back to the same edge that separates good technicians from great ones: communication, clean execution, and professional habits that protect profit and reputation. 
• using AI for takeoffs and bills of material while still verifying counts and labor assumptions 
• weighing speed vs accuracy in estimating and protecting margin with human judgment 
• tracking optical LAN and fiber to the edge growth as bandwidth demand rises 
• building a starter fiber toolkit with lighting, cleaning, cleavers, VFLs and realistic costs 
• learning from early-career mistakes by listening, following instructions and improving cable management 
• using mentorship to develop strong fundamentals and avoid inherited bad habits 
• adapting to higher-density data centers with better routing plans and stronger documentation 
• understanding what owners focus on during walkthroughs, from labels to clean telecom rooms and swept floors 
• setting expectations early with kickoff meetings and improving closeout with customer surveys 
• handling coworkers who don’t care without lowering your own standards 
• choosing certifications plus experience, with communication as the biggest career multiplier 
• preparing for cybersecurity demands, especially around network-connected cameras 
• making smart buildings manageable by focusing on outcomes and simple operator interfaces 
Make sure you tune in for that show, CTC 

Transcript

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After-Hours Kickoff

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Wednesday night, 6 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. That can only mean one thing. Live after hours with your favorite RCDD. You know, that's me. Your favorite RCDD. Chuck Bowser here to talk to you about structure cabling systems. I got a newbie in the TikTok feed. He already asked me one question right out of the gate. He says, Have I ever done Crestron? And the answer to that is no, I have not. But I have friends who do it regularly. So if you have questions about Crestron, send them to me. I'll send it to them and get them to answer it, and then I'll come back with you with the answer. So I've never done Crestron. So that answers your question there, CTC. BT's in the house. So we always start every week with what are you drinking? What are you drinking? Chuck is drinking Root Beer Zevia, uh, Zevia Dr. Pepper mean. Zevia Dr. Pepper. Yep, just so you guys can see it. You know, this is uh it's after hours, so you can drink whatever you want, but you know, Chuck's always gonna be drinking with this Zevia or T, always T. I do both, so it kind of really all depends. So let's get in right with the you know I always do the next thing is gonna be the acronym challenge. The acronym challenge. So the acronym challenge for this week is let me flip over to that page so I can see my notes. There it is. DWVPN. DWVPN. What is that acronym? That acronym stands for Dynamic Multipoint Virtual Private Network. It's a computer thing. Hey, did you catch last week's two shows? We did show with TJ Pate, three-time cabling skills challenge winner on OPGW. The first episode was What is OPGW? And the second show was because it's a two-part show. The second part was what skills do you need to do OPGW? So we covered that. New shows coming up. I got a show coming up about counterfeit cable, CCA cabling, copper clad aluminum cabling, also CPR, what does that mean? And then I also got uh Donald Sanders from E2 Optics coming on. We're gonna talk about low voltage training from the classroom to the job site, things that you need to know to be able to do to get the most out of the class that you're going to take. Because if you want to go anywhere in this industry, you do have to be a constant learner. A constant learner. Alrighty, so there we go. Oh, I got one new message already. Oh, look at that. Who's that? Let's open that up. Boom. Tyler Johnson's in the house. How are you doing, Mr. Tyler Johnson? So let's just get right into the questions. Right

Using AI For Faster Estimates

SPEAKER_01 3:25

into the questions. So this question comes from Carlos on Facebook. How much AI are you actually using during estimating? And are you still, or do you still refuse to trust it? Okay, so first off, let's make something abundantly clear. Counterfeit cable, yes. Copper clad aluminum. Make sure you tune in for that show, CTC. Um obviously I trust AI. I use AI for everything. I use it to make graphics, I use it to make questions, I use it to make to help me come up with topic ideas. Absolutely, I trust AI. Not 100% though, but I trust it. Would I trust it estimating? Yes. Probably about 80%, like I do with everything else. So the the real critical question is are you really looking for speed or are you looking for accuracy when you look start talking about AI versus manual estimating skills? AI can absolutely save time. It can actually, you know, you you could dump those sheet those the the drawings into the AI and it can do the counts for you, it can do the routing for you, it can calculate all kinds of stuff literally in seconds, in seconds. But for those who've never estimated before, estimates, the mistakes in estimating can get very expensive very quickly, very quickly. So what you need to really need to do is you need to make sure that so right now, let's talk about the AI tools now for estimating cable products, cable projects. They certainly have AI right now that can help you come up with a bill of material, AI that can look at prints and scan them and tell you how many open triangles you have, how many half triangles do you have. They absolutely have AI that can do that. But you still need to go back and verify it. You know, I've met off said this on the show before. When I was an estimator, I used to bring home prints and I used to let my kids count up the triangles, right? So, yes, I use my kids as slave labor, but I verified their counts. It's the same thing with AI. And here's another thing: AI doesn't have the same intuition that a cable estimator is going to have for as far as the labor. Is this gonna be the crew that's very experienced? Is this gonna be the crew that has no experience? Is this gonna be a kind of conditions where our guys have never worked in before? Like, for example, maybe you've never done work in a national landmark. Or is this just a regular boilerplate office building, right? AI can make some assumptions, but it's still gonna take the human mind to be able to verify those labor rates and the human mind to protect those profits. So AI can absolutely do it. Now, here's the thing, that's where we're at now. What about in the next five years? Um AI will be another estimating tool, but you know, here's the thing the firms that are using AI right now are evaluating how that automation fits into the pre-construction cycle. Okay, what's it gonna look like? I'll give you an example. So, right now we're using junior estimators to help with project managers. So maybe make that process of junior estimators in their role or the process to get to their career path to get to estimators, maybe make part of that help making the AI. See, AI has to learn. It has to learn. And when it makes a mistake, you gotta tell it how to train it. So that way it makes it um uh so it doesn't put doesn't keep making those mistakes. So AI is helping with estimating, absolutely. It's gonna be more in the future, will it take over completely at some point? I don't know, my my AI brain wants it to, but my human brain doesn't want it to, if that makes any sense.

Why Fiber Keeps Winning

SPEAKER_01 7:26

The next question this comes from Nicole on Instagram, and Nicole has 15 years of experience, and Nicole was asking, huh, have have owners started asking me about optical land more often? Or is it still mostly something we hear discussed at industry events? Yes, fiber to the home has been something, you know, uh while optical local area networking is getting a lot more attention lately because people are demanding more bandwidth. And don't get me wrong, coax internet service providers are great, but fiber is better. It's immune to EMI, it can go longer distances. If using single mode, you can go so we don't know what the bandwidth limit is on single mode right now. So, yes, you're gonna still gonna hear it at the Bixie events, you're still gonna hear it at Infocom, you'll still hear it at all the other uh industry events, but here's the thing campus and you know, enterprise campus, enterprise campus customers are evaluating fiber to the edge architecture. I I did a walkthrough, I want to say it was a year ago. I was in West Virginia and I was doing uh a walkthrough through a school there with a friend of mine, and he showed me how they did fiber to these edge architectures in the classrooms, so they didn't have to have telecom rooms everywhere. And then they just ran the horizontal cable from those ceiling-mounted uh edge edge architectures to the out to the God, I can't talk tonight, to the work area outlets. So, yes, it's gonna it's it's gonna become more and more in the enterprise. It's already there in residential optical network terminals and all that stuff. I just think you're gonna see more and more of it as the service providers and the access providers continue, continue to remove old copper. CTC on TikTok wants to know what tools do you need to get into fiber? So that really kind of depends on what kind of fiber are you going to be doing. Are you going to be doing fusion splicing? Are you going to be doing mechanical splices? Are you going to be doing enterprise network? Are you going to be doing um mid-splan and mid-span entries? At minimum, you're going to need a pair of fiber shears, okay, fiber snips, because they actually made the cut Kevlar. If you're going to do mechanical, make sure you get um a good. I'm going to give you the easy tools first. Buy yourself a 100-watt LED shop light from Lowe's. I saw one there for 10 bucks, just literally, like a week ago, because you will need light to see that stuff. A black mat for terminating fiber on, a fiber disposable can. If you're going to do mechanical connectors, then you need to invest in a uh, or hopefully your company has a cleave tool, a good cleave tool. I like the precision cleave tools better, like the ones like links. Okay. I like them a lot better. And then also invest in a VFL, a visual fault locator, some fiber cleaning stuff, because remember, every fiber is dirty until you clean it. So, you know, some 99% isopropyl alcohol, some lint-free wipes, or some fiber optic clean the sticklers has a lot of great fiber cleaning stuff that you can get for a relatively good price. Maybe a fiber inspection scope. Like you look down side of it. Um, so you're really looking probably at about a thousand bucks to get started with fiber. Now, if they're gonna be doing fusion splicing, your company should be buying the fusion splicer. Fusion splicers range anywhere from about 2,500 to about 12,000, depending on whose you get and what options you kind of get with that. So there you go. All right, going back to uh Nicole's question. Uh she was asking about fiber, or we're really starting to see it. So we are, it's absolutely there. And it is it approaching mainstream? It already is mainstream, especially with AI and artificial intelligence, because you didn't know what that was. It's funny how all these people are against AI data centers, but they want to use Chat GPT, they want to use Waze, they want to use Google Cloud. That's all AI. That's all AI. So that's driving a lot of fiber right now. And you know, so really realistically, new construction, I'm gonna say you see a lot more fiber. Existing or retrofit, you'll probably see less fiber.

Rookie Mistakes And Mentorship

SPEAKER_01 12:08

Next question, and this comes from Jordan on TikTok. And Jordan says, What's one mistake I've made during my first year in structured cabling that completely changed how you work today? Everybody has that one lesson that they never forgot. Hey, put in the chat box what's the one lesson that that uh that you never forgot? Adam and Eve's in the house. They are being forced to use it. Nobody's being forced to use AI. Nobody. You can make the choice to be anti-technology and not use any of that stuff, but there you go. So for me, the first m the first one I did, the first mistake I made was my boss told me to go do some stuff, and I just went off and did it, and I didn't listen to everything he said, and I made a huge mistake, me to go back and fix it. And that made me live, that made me realize the most important skill that a technician, an installer, an apprentice can have is the ability to listen and the ability to follow instructions. That's the biggest skill set. That's even true today, even more so true today because there's a lot of people looking into getting into the into the industry, but they don't have any skill sets. And right now we need some people so bad we will hire you with no skill sets as long as you show up, as long as you listen, and as long as you stay off your phone all day long. Um, another one that comes to mind is cable management. Cable management. This is where I learned how important cable management was. And this wasn't necessarily my fault. We used to do a work for a law firm in Dowtown, DC. It was one of the top ten law firms used. Okay. Um the thing is, this particular customer, we all know this. If you're if you're if you're a technician, you've done this. You've pulled cable, you've terminated the cable, you routed the patch cords in all nice and pretty. You come back two weeks later, it's all messed up. Well, this one customer, their ID department was so bad, once a year we had to go back and disconnect all the patch cords, well, I'm sorry, label them, disconnect them, and then put them back together using the wire managers. And you think they'd learn the lesson after they pay the bill the first year. No. They kept doing it and kept doing it. The key thing is, whether you have one year experience, and Daryl, the RCDs in the house, you'll probably agree with me here. Whether you have one year experience or 44 years experience like me, we all still make mistakes. We all still make mistakes. The key is number one, don't let those mistakes get you down. Number two, learn from those mistakes. Still learn from those mistakes. CTC says he still sucks at cable management. You're talking about cable dressing or cable management? Because those are those are two different things. And this is where my point where I could say mentorship, right? You know, how do you know, how do you learn all this stuff? Mentorship is one of the easiest ways. Find somebody who's doing what you're doing and ask them to be your mentor. What's the worst they can say? No? Okay, then go ask somebody else. But what if they say yes, right? What if they say yes? But make sure it's somebody who's good at what they're doing, somebody already has the skill sets that you've identified that you need for your workforce development, because that remains the true that that's that's a huge industry concern right now. Senior technicians teaching best practices is gonna be the good way to go. But just keep in mind, not even the senior technicians, they may have been taught wrong. So find one that's doing it right, find someone who's cable combing, some find someone who's doing cable management and ask them to mentor you. Okay? That's gonna help you out a lot. The key is the fundamentals still matter in our industry to this day. And building the strong installation habits now is like building a foundation that you'll build your high voltage uh low voltage industry on forever. I realize the algorithm was brought to you by Buggy Dispage, don't you?

unknown 16:20

There you go.

SPEAKER_01 16:21

All right, question number six.

Data Center Density Reality Check

SPEAKER_01 16:23

This comes from Derek on LinkedIn. He's a data center specialist. He says data centers keep demanding higher density. What's the biggest installation practice that's changed over the last five years? Lots of stuff has changed over the last five years from data centers. We've gone from you know 12 strands to 24 strands to up to 6912s. And a lot of that really depends on, you know, it's gonna it's gonna make you have better planning skills on how to route things because when you're running a 6912, which is about uh yay big, right, you need to plan how that's gonna run through the through the data center, through the racks, and into the cabinets. How are they gonna break up amongst those fiber optic enclosures? Because you're not gonna put a 6912 all in one enclosure. How are you gonna break up to go between those multiples enclosures? There's all things that you need to think about. Here's another thing, this is more critical. Documentation. I just saw somebody asked me in a question on, I want to say it sent me a message on TikTok yesterday or the day before, asked about labeling for labeling for data centers. There's actually a couple different methods for doing it. Um maybe I'll do a show about that one day. But one is the grid system. Good documentation of data centers is gonna make the IT person's life easy. And if their life is easy, then they're not gonna be so mad at you, right? So that's why it matters. Question number seven. This comes from Alyssa on Clapper, a project manager, right? Do I think Ubiquity makes enterprise level equipment? Oh, so so enterprise, that's that's kind of a a mixed bag right there, right? Because technically speaking, if you're doing if you're doing uh a network in a in a veterin office, which only has three computers, that's an enterprise system. But doesn't that lean a little more towards residential, right? A big enterprise system would be like a law firm or a customer who has multiple floors or a couple of customers' big buildings. I think it's not a matter of can it do it, the matter is the resiliency of that equipment. That's I think what the real biggest question is there.

What Owners Notice On Walkthroughs

SPEAKER_01 18:48

So uh, okay, listen, I forgot her question. So, what was uh what when you're walking a completed project with the owner, what's one thing that they notice that surprises you the most? And you know, the funny thing is, is you can have three different people walk a completed job site and they will see three different things. Everybody has their pet peeves. When I do a walkthrough, I look at fire stopping, I look at bonding and grounding. For me, cable dressing, yeah, it's it ranks up pretty high, but it's not the highest thing for me. Right? How did they terminate it? Did they strip back too much of the of the jacket? Right? Do they put labels on everything? Do they put labels on the front, labels on the cables? Here's a key one. Was the floor swept clean after they got done? Right? But owners seem to have a different focus, right? Customers, they when it when I've done walkthroughs with them, it always amazes me how they really like well-dressed cable telecom rooms, well-dressed telecom rooms, because they they equate quality visually. You know, the test results could say something totally different, but they want to make sure that the cable looks clean and the floor looks clean. Um documentation is more than just the equipment, it's also gonna be the cable, the blueprints, the red lines, the as builds. But the key, what you can do to make that a little bit more successful is have a conversation with the customer before you do the project. Well, a kickoff meeting. There you go. That's a good one right there. A kickoff meeting before the project, and ask them what are their expectations. If they say, Well, we want to make sure that the network works, okay, check. We want to make sure that um the room is clean. Well, then don't leave cable scraps all over the floor when you go do the final walkthrough. So, really, how you finish comes down to how well, how well you communicated during the beginning of that project, and that's gonna make that's gonna affect your closeout process, and that's gonna make the turnover to the customer go a lot quicker. And that that's make your job easier. Everybody wants their job a little easier. So, and then also here's another one too that that you get done with afterwards is is uh after you do the project, why not send a survey to the customer saying, hey, how do you how well did we do? How well how well did my text treat you? How do you feel like you got what you paid for? Is there anything we can do better? Actually, a better way to ask that is how can we be 10% better on the next project? Okay, so that way you can make those adjustments as you move on because better processes are going to give you better customer satisfaction.

Working With People Who Don’t Care

SPEAKER_01 21:34

Okay, how do I deal with coworkers that don't care as much as you do? Andrew, that's a tale of Andrew Ledbetter. Hey, there's a song, uh Ledbetter. Um that's that's a tale as old as time. That's a tale as old as time. Here's I here's what I can tell you, Andrew. The people who don't care will eventually move on. They're not gonna stay in this industry for long, and they're gonna just move on. Um, yellow lead better. It's one of my favorite songs. Exactly right. I got it on my playlist. So the people who don't care tend to get filtered out of this industry. Here's the thing. Don't let their attitude affect your altitude. Oh, that's a good one. Don't let their attitude affect your affect your altitude. Always do the best that you can. And what'll happen is customers will notice. Your employers will notice. And that's going to make you more valuable. The more valuable you are, the more money you can make. So they're always going to be those kind of people. And to be honest, to be honest, I've been this industry for 41 years. I was that person. I was that person who didn't care at the beginning. It wasn't until somebody took me under their wing and mentored me and showed me what could this industry industry do. So maybe that's the issue with you. Pick one of those coworkers and see if they you can mentor them. So that's a good one, right? Alrighty, next question. This comes from Kayla. She came to me from Instagram. What made you choose low voltage instead of becoming an electrician or going into IT? Okay, well, my story on how I got in this industry is probably like most people. I fell into this industry. You know, I at the time, when I was 18, I was working as a manager at a gas station. My uh my ex-wife got me a job working at a cable company. I started doing cabling, and then it kind of went from there. Then it was then after about five, six, seven years, I realized, hey, this is a good career. Then I started investing in it. So I wasn't like most people. So electrician was never really on my plate. But when I was a young installer, I was thinking about, hey, what if what if I want to become a PBX technician? What if I want to become an IT person? Because I wanted to do what's the next thing to do? I don't want to be pulling cable when I was 45 years old. I heard that a lot, right? Well, the key is I never did IT, I never go into the phone systems, I just did cabling. I just went from installing to project management to estimating to training. So I love cabling. And my wife will tell you when I walk into a building, I look up to see how the cables are done. That's how much of a geek I am. Right? And uh so a lot of people fall in our industry that way. The thing to understand about why this matters is because you know, recruiting is an absolute challenge right now. And I've said this before, we need people, we need young people in this industry. So how can we the real question is how do we attract young people to get in this industry? Because it wasn't like when I was young, yeah. When I was young, the high school, you know, teachers were told me, hey, well, you want to go into the trades. Uh you know, you want to go, you want to go to college, you want to become an a four-year degree. Well, okay, I did that, but I'm in a career field that I don't even use it. But we got to think about how to attract more people to this workforce. We we really do. Maybe that means you know, career growth through uh retention. So just keep doing what you're doing, identify that so people can help you with that. Okay, next question. This

Cybersecurity Pressure On Low Voltage

SPEAKER_01 25:16

comes from Brandon on Facebook. And Brandon says cybersecurity is now showing up at almost every owner meeting. Where do you think low voltage contractors need to become more knowledgeable? Cameras. Cameras. Cameras. Make sure you choose a camera that complies with the the latest cybersecurity standard. Because there's a lot of facilities that don't allow different types of cabling, different types of camera, certain types of cameras, sorry. And because people can hack into them and see things. Think about all the flock cameras right now out there. There, I'm not I'm not an IT person, but there's a lot of people saying you can hack into flock cameras relatively easy. So that's a cybersecurity, I think, is a great field. Pulling cable gets you into the into the information communication technologies industry. But cybersecurity is a great pathway if you want to do more computer type stuff. Because cybersecurity is huge. Absolutely huge. That means that you're gonna have to get some uh some experience. You know, what's where are you gonna get that from? Go to school, go to you know take any of the certification classes, but cybersecurity is absolutely big. Question number 10. This comes from Ryan. If you had to pick one certification or skill that gives a young technician the biggest career boost, what would it be? No, I don't like real-link cameras, by the way. Um so to me, there's all there's age-wheel conversation, which is better, a credential or experience? My answer is both. Here's the thing. If you go, if you go down the if you go down the experience path, you may be taught by somebody incorrectly. They may not have been taught correctly. So for me, I'm thinking it's better off if you get a credential first and then go get the experience. So start off with the apprentice type of credentialing. The IBEW has a great apprenticeship program. Go there and they got a low voltage program. Get that apprentice level certification. And then work your way up, maybe to like install a copper, installer fiber, technician. Because just because that's the way we've always done it, doesn't mean that's the way we need to do it today. And there are a lot of people out there who were trained wrong. But just remember, when it comes to employers, they're going to be looking at both certifications and experience. So be a constant learner, try to get the skills. There's a there's a there's a guy on the on the internet right now, I think his I think his channel's called Cybernetics or something like that. And he's he's making a vlog about learning low voltage from scratch. And you know, he's going through this school at W at Wactor, and they're learning learning stuff. What a great way to start off this industry. Because when I started this industry, they just gave me cable and said, pull the cable that way, terminate the cable. Not why did you have to worry about you know EMI? What was EMI? So he's learning all that kind of stuff. The biggest thing you can learn as a to be successful in this career is communications. Communicate, communicate, communicate, because we suck at communicating. You know, interpersonal skills, how to get along with people, how to get along with other trades, because we're always always fighting each other in other trades. Next question this comes from Sophie. Are

Smart Buildings That Stay Manageable

SPEAKER_01 29:05

smart buildings actually getting smarter, or are we just connecting more systems without making them easier to manage? So she's a smart building consultant. Okay, well, integration sounds simple until those systems have to work together. So, yes, building automation is a big thing. Those systems are starting to talk to each other: HVAC, lighting, PoE, security, cameras, they're all starting to work together on the network, which puts more stress on the network, which is why I tell people all the time, even though the standard says minimum cable install Cat 5E, do a Cat 6, maybe do a Cat 6A, because you don't know what kind of systems we're going to put across those at a later date. But when you really want to know about building automation and you know, is it really getting smarter? Ask your client. You know, find out what they care about. Do they really care more about the technology? Are they early adopters, or do they really care about the outcomes? Well, if you get this HVAC system, it's gonna lower our HVAC costs. It's gonna lower our maintenance costs, it's gonna lower our power uh bill. If it's more if it's more outcome-based, then you can focus on those types of systems. Facility managers, though, when it's talking about building automation, they don't want some really complicated dashboard. They want something simple, something easy. What's that called? Um WisiWig? What you see is what you get? No, no, no, no. There's a there's a there's a name for it where it's user guided interface. Oh, my mind's pulling a blank on me. Um where it's real easy. When I remember when you had computers, you know, you had DOS commands, and then when you went to you know the the graphics with the with the mouse and you drag it over and drop it, made it a lot easier, right? That's what they want for building automation. So you really need to make sure that you know that's gonna tell the customer it's gonna reduce that those maintenance calls, and those metrics are gonna justify those future investments. So, yes, it's it's smart building is just gonna grow and grow and grow. So that's that's yeah, again, it's one of the branches on the low voltage tree. There are many branches, but building automation is one of them. Okay. Alrighty, let me see. One more question because we're already at 630.

Professional Habits That Set You Apart

SPEAKER_01 31:26

What's one habit that I wish every new technician would develop before they pull their first cable? Well, I you you probably already guessed it because I've said it three times today. Communications. Communications, communications, listening, learning, applying. So when somebody tells you to do something, repeat it back to them, make sure you understand them, make sure that you do it. That's the biggest skill set. Everything else, how to pull cable, how to attach pull string, how to terminate a four-pair cable, how to terminate a Cat 6A cable, how to do a pass-through connector. I can teach you those skills. I can teach you those skills. I want you to treat, like CTC said, I want you to treat this as a career, as a craftsman, not as a guy just looking to get a paycheck. Because it matters because our industry will reward professionalism. That's what's going to make one contractor or one technician more successful over another one, is how professional they are. Are they showing up in in clean shirts? Are they showing up with jeans with no holes? Are they wearing work boots? Are they having conversations with the customer without using any curse words? That kind of stuff makes a big impact. A big impact. And our industry needs way more professionals than we absolutely have now. I think I saw a staff for every 10 people who retire, there's only four or five, or maybe even six, that come to replace them. So we are short on technicians now. And it's going to continue to get worse until we figure out a way to hire more people to get them into this into this industry. All right, that's 633. That marks my 30-minute mark. So I appreciate everybody being here today. Remember, till next time, knowledge is power.