AHL - Cable Questions Answered

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Acronym Challenge And Housekeeping

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Wednesday night six PM Eastern Standard Time. That can only mean one thing. Live after hours with Chuck Bowser, your favorite R C D D, because you know that's me.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Let's talk Cal. Yeah, let's talk Cal. Cover five of Structure to Right. What's the day to day and night? Stay connected. Stay connected.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

You interrupted six o'clock Wednesday night. You know that only means one thing. Live after hours with me. You can spend 30 minutes with me. I got some questions that were sent to me in advance. But you know what I mean? I always like to start the week off, the show off, not the week, the show off with, whoa, that is uh that is capping there. Um I always like to start the show off with acronym challenges. So the acronym challenge, oh nice, it's even broadcasting on LinkedIn tonight. Yes. The acronym challenge for today is I see. I see. If you know what that means, let me know. Here we go. I'll give you some theme music while you're trying to figure it out. I see. Nobody guessed it correctly. Not even my RCD study student in the TikTok feed. I see. What does that mean? Intermediate cross connect. Intermediate cross connect. It's the cross connect that connects to the horizontal and to the main cross connect. Okay, it's a cross connect field. So there you go. Moving on. Second thing I always do, what are you drinking? What are you drinking? And Chuck is drinking Zevia Cola as always, but I got it in my new Tumblr that I got from doing my walk-a-thon. So tell us in the chat box, what are you drinking? I love cola flavored Zevia. Got the taste, no sugar. Nice. Caitlin says he's drinking sweet tea. Uh Cole says, no tea, a shame. So, Cole, just so you know, I recently got diagnosed as a diabetic. So I gotta stay away from sugar, gotta stay away from bread and starches until I get my numbers back down to normal again. So no sweet tea for me. I live in Florida, I live in the South. I always drink sweet tea, right? Always drink sweet tea. Next thing I want to go at, in case you haven't heard, I said this last stream. Bixie is looking for two TDSs, training delivery specialists. Those are the people who teach the Bixie classes. One position is a remote position, the other position is a it needs to be local to the Tampa area. So if you're in the Tampa area and you want to work for Bixie and you want to train people and you want to impact this industry and you want to carve out a reputation for being a subject matter expert, there you go. Apply for that job. Also, in case you didn't know, this is the week that Bixie Beyond is happening, 2026. I didn't get to make it. I really wish I could have because I had some friends sending me pictures, TJ Page and Jasmine Cinto, and I've been posting those on LinkedIn. So I've been seeing those pictures. Man, I tell you, I really, really wish, really wish I could uh um could have gone to that. They're supposed to be Bixie's supposed to be announcing something huge at the event. I don't know if they have or not yet. So I'm kind of curious, kind of waiting on pins and needles to see what that is. And then also I want to talk about a little bit, you know. I put on every the first of the month, I always put out the performance of the podcast. I'm transparent. Man, did I take a hit this month? Holy Toledo. I normally hit 225, 250, 275, 300, sometimes 400,000 views. 400,000 views. This month I only hit 150,000 views, and a lot of that's because of that TikTok band from earlier in the month. But I'll tell you what I did do that. I got 500 new subs this month. 500 new subs across all the platforms. So that's still a good number, but my views took took a hit. So uh the Bixie Beyond is the Vegas one that happens. The winter one is uh in February of next year. I believe it's happening around Thanksgiving, not Thanksgiving, Valentine's Day, I think. Valentine's Day. And then also, I gotta make this announcement too. This is this is sad. The industry lost a really good guy this week. His name is Dave Utterbach. Dave Utterbach was the director of sales for cable connections in South Carolina. Close friend of mine. Um we lost him this week. We lost him this week. So put his family, put his friends, and his and the his close peers in the uh in your prayer list if you don't mind. Upcoming shows! Man, I'm super excited for this. Um the next three weeks. Oh my god Nolan's gonna love this one. The next three weeks, Mike Pinocchio. Mike Panaki's the guy who teaches the fluke certification classes. We got an hour and 37 minutes of fluke testing and test results. We even talk about, listen to this, we even talk about how to alien crosstalk cable with a versive. That's pretty cool. That's pretty cool. And also don't forget October 23rd to 25th, Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving. So if you if you're interested in giving your skills back to a community that are doing some cabling at the Ronald McDonald's in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, October 23rd to the 25th. I will be in attendance on Saturday. I'm flying up, I'll be there Saturday. Not sure if I'm working, not sure if I'm dressing cables. I got some stuff I want to play. I want to bring my my my cable cone with me, my other and my and my 3D printed cable thing with me, and maybe even my Jannard one, and maybe they'll let me do a maybe do a live test. Maybe I'll broadcast live from this. That'd be kind of cool. That'd be kind of cool. There we go. Also, another important announcement. Um, it's not it's uh not too late to join us for the first ever monthly Ask Chuck Live starting on September 8th, Tuesday, September 8th. Bring your questions. Um, it's gonna be done through a Zoom, it's not gonna be online, it's gonna be done through Zoom, okay? And well, we where you have direct access to me. See, here on this, you only get one side, and I kind of try to watch the questions, but Anthony's in the house. Um, but here, let's be honest, I'm like a one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest when I'm running the live streams because I got my notes in front of me. I got I got TikTok up and running, I've got restream running, going to Facebook and YouTube and LinkedIn. On the Zoom channels, you get direct access to me, right? So I'm doing the first one ever. In fact, it's that QR code right there. That QR, you guys can't see it on TikTok, but it's on the live streams. Right there, scan that QR code and join me. Join me with that. So Ed, the old tech guys in the house. Yo, yo, yo, Mr. Ed man, have you been paying attention to some of the data center shorts from our episode? Holy cow! It uh it was um it's contrary. There's some people out there. You might want to hop in those posts and and maybe and uh and add it.

How Far Multimode Fiber Reaches

SPEAKER_01 7:56

So let's get right into the questions. So the first question is uh from LinkedIn, and I can't remember who this was because I failed to capture the guy's name, but he asked me, he says, Chuck, how far can multi-mode fiber send a signal?

unknown 8:10

Hmm.

SPEAKER_01 8:11

And he says he knows that copper can go up to 295 feet. Well, again, you know, bandwidth is directly linked to the cable length. The longer the length, the less bandwidth.

unknown 8:25

Right?

SPEAKER_01 8:25

The shorter the length, the more bandwidth. So it kind of really all depends. All depends. So for example, if you're doing if you're doing um something that's got 100 155 megabits or less, 6,500 feet. 65, 2,000 meters, actually. And if I remember right, 60 2,000 meters is 6,562 feet. Somebody double check me. Double check me. Somebody with a calculator, uh, take 2,000 and multiply it by 3.28. I think it's 6,562. But so if you're doing 155 or less, again, cameras, cameras are are are way less than that, you can go up to 6,000 feet. If you're trying to send one gig, one gig, you can send that out 550 meters or 1,804 feet. If you're trying to do 10 gig over multi-mode fiber, you can go 300 meters or 984 feet. And if you're trying to send 100 gig, right, um, or 40 gig, you're kind of limited to that 100 meters or 328 feet. So, as I mentioned, I was talking to uh tick. If you know if I do TikTok live as well, too, and I was talking to my peeps because I always go live there first. And I was talking to some of my friends, and I'm I threw this out there. I'm running, uh I'm almost changed over to the new lab, right? So, what you're actually looking at is a virtual background here. Uh the the the that that's gone, the the brick is gone, the sign is gone, it's all up on the hill, all up in the hill. So actually, I'm running a virtual background, and uh, so I gotta run a file opti cable because so we have spectrum down here with the router, and I when I'm gonna when I do a speed test up in the podcast studio, I get pretty good download speed, like 100, 120, but my upload speed is about two to three meg. That's why last week's live stream was so horrible, and I got so frustrated. I in fact, I just shut it down. I was like, I'm not doing this. So I got to run a fiber optic cable between the podcast studio all the way down here, and and and and my and my buddy said he might have some tiny fiber you can send me. That'd be kind of cool. Is it multi-mode or single mode? Let me know. Let me know. Um, because I might even make a video about that. I've already put an anti-static flooring in the podcast studio, right? And I filmed me doing that. It's an expected episode of that coming out. All right, get back to the questions. Uh, this question is fiber flippers in the house. I couldn't even tell. Well, fiber is a non-conductive, non-armor. You don't have to get it for a ground. That that's exactly right. If it doesn't have any metal in it, it's an all-diele electric cable, then you don't have to ground it. Armored fiber or an outside plant fiber that's got that that wrap around it has to be bonded to a ground. Now listen to this on both sides. Both sides. Because you don't know which way that stray voltage is going to go. So we got to protect both sides. In fact, a lot of people will argue with this, and what the code book actually says is you gotta bond it armored fiber to a ground per the manufacturer's instructions, and my day job recommends both sides. I assume all the other big ones also say both sides. All right, let's

Fault Managed Power Is Coming

SPEAKER_01 11:41

get into the question. I have four years of experience in the trade, and I'm starting to see fault managed power mentioned on drawings. Is class four power start showing up more often? What changes for the technicians and who's actually installing and testing? Oh, that's a great question, Caleb. That's in fact, it's so good. I did an interview with Rhana Davis. Rhonda Davis works for Vault Server. She works, she's somehow associated with the Fault Managed Power System uh Alliance. And she's gonna come in on the show. We're gonna talk about fault managed power systems, how to design it, how to install it, what skill sets. Great, great question. Um, so fault managed power systems is gonna be able to be installed by low voltage technicians, but it's not category rated. Category rated four-pair cable, like you're thinking. So I'm gonna leave that question alone because uh I want you to watch that episode. So that's gonna come out literally in four weeks because remember, I got those three episodes with Mike Pinocchio coming up,

Moving From Field Tech To Sales

SPEAKER_01 12:41

right? Uh Zoomiller says, Any advice for going through a change in my low voltage career from an installer to sales? Ooh, wow, that's a that's a great jump. Um, let me ask you this, Mr. Zoomiller. Um, did you pick that role? Or did it just happen to be a role that you opened up and you said, Hey, I want to get out of the field so bad, I want to go to sales. And let me know that. And the reason I asked that question is because a salesperson who came from the field, okay, it's kind of the rule that they offer me. Okay, all right, good. So a salesperson who came from the field, let me back up. Everybody knows I used to be an estimator, everybody knows this, right? So when I used to get visits from salespeople all the time: inside sales, outside sales, gray bar angster, CSC, manufacturer, always used to come visit me and stuff. I would much rather have a salesperson who had field experience, who had a field experience, because I could talk to them. I could talk to them, right? And I know that they know when I when I'm talking about, when I start talking about, you know, fill ratios, bend radiuses, when I start talking about, you know, things that a lot of sales see salespeople's they're good at memorizing information about the products they sell, but when you get outside that product range, yeah, they're not quite so good. Okay, not quite so good. Don't get me wrong, I'm I'm kind of painting with a broad brush there. There are some salespeople that are absolutely great, but I would rather have a salesperson with technical experience. Now, I will tell you this Zoom L Art. I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly. There are some skill sets. There are some skill sets you're going to need when moving into sales. Okay, some skill sets. Okay. Now, I don't know you, I might know you, I might not know you. I don't know. I can't, I don't recognize you by the uh by the by your title, but here's the thing. I'm not gonna talk general generally for field techs. Field techs are really good pulling, terminating, installing, testing, certifying copper, fiber obviously cable plants. They're good at filling out timesheets, they're good at you know, updating as builds. There it is right there, Kaylin. Communications. You need Kayla knew I was going with this. Here's the thing. Oh, very cool. You took one of my my classes from my day job a little bit later on. I appreciate that. Nice. Um, so here's the thing for a salesperson. The two the two critical things for you as a salesperson that you might struggle with coming out of the field rejection and communications. Because you're gonna have to reach out to a lot of people, and a lot of people are gonna turn you down. Remember, they're not turning you, don't take that as a personal thing, they're not turning you down, okay? Because it's hard for you know, because for a while there, I functioned as a sales PM, and for every 10 10 calls that I had, sales calls that I had, I might, I might get through to two people. And when I got through those two people, I might be able to talk to one of them on the phone. And they said no. So rejection, don't worry about it, and you'll you'll be able to do that. The second thing is communicate, communicate, communicate. Take lots of good notes. And and and most sales positions usually come with subtype of uh tracking systems. Um, they're called different things. Um, I can't remember off the top of my head because um they're usually run by Oracle, where you can actually go in. Said, I met with this customer today. We talked about this, this, and this. This customer told me. Here's a tip for you. When you go and meet a customer for the first time in the sales position, don't talk shop. Get to know the person. Talk about Salesforce. Thank you, Ed. My mind just pulled a blank on me. Um, get to know the person. Is he married? Is he not married? What is it? What do you what do they like to do? Do they like to golf? Do they what do they like to eat? Build that personal relationship first. And then when the conversation's flowing, then say, hey, is there any anything that I can help you with? Any, are you having any issues I might be able to help you solve? Okay, that's bringing value to that is what's going to build that relationship and keep that relationship, right? Call them on the birthday, send them things, stuff like that. That all helps. My my my my um my uh my former my former mentor, just to kind of give you an idea, he did a sales call on this one customer for two years before he got the first project out of them. But that first project was a huge project, it was a $15 million project, so it was well worth it. So um Keman says use plod. That's a good idea for for um creating notes and stuff. Um but there's lots of ways, so that's that's yeah, I I'm gonna do some research on it. You know what? I might try to do an episode on that. Um hey love, make a note episode on transitioning from a tech to sales position. Future episode. There, I just told my director of operations, so you know that's gonna happen now.

Estimating Around Material Price Swings

SPEAKER_01 17:47

Next question comes from Eric on LinkedIn. Eric says, I've been estimating for eight years, and material pricing still feels unpredictable. Okay, and uh how um how are good contractors handling escalation when a bid might sit for months before the project actually gets released? And that's a great question. That's a great one. Uh bring me on for that one. I became a oh that'd be yes, Ed Remind me. Um so here's the thing. Yes, pricing, material pricing volatility is nothing new. It's been around for ever since I've been in the industry, and that's for four and a half decades, 45 years. It's been around for a long time. And there's there's cycles to any kind of industry. There's up, there's downs, and then things happen. Like I remember, oh, I can't remember when this is. Maybe somebody can look it up on Google and tell me. Uh, and I think I mentioned it last episode or not, maybe it's hot, but there was a there's only two cable plants that produce FEP, right? And one of them burnt down. So there was a period of time where plenum cable prices just well, right now it's fiber optic cable, the price is going through the roof. So material pricing volatility is nothing new, Eric. Nothing new. But as an estimator, there are things you can do to protect yourself. Number one, talk to distribution. When you talk to them and they give you pricing, have them give you a firm date that they will hold that pricing for. Now, depending on the market, sometimes that might lose only be two days. If you're lucky, it might be a week. If you're really lucky and you've been a good boy, you might get a two-week promise. Okay. Whatever, whatever, whatever time frame they give you, make sure you put in your proposal that your material pricing is only good for X amount of days. And then that way, that way, when that day comes, and if you haven't, you know, a month later, six months later, and they want they said, Okay, we want to do it, you have you you told them in the terms and conditions, you're only holding that material pricing for two weeks. Yet you now reserve the right to go back and reprice the materials. Now, what you will find is sometimes the pricing is gonna go up, sometimes the pricing is gonna go down. It just kind of really all depends.

Cutting Telecom Rooms With Central Fiber

SPEAKER_01 20:03

Next question from Alice, and this is I'm an RCD, and owners keep asking me whether I can eliminate telecom rooms by pushing fiber farther and powering devices remotely. How do you decide when a more centralized architecture actually makes sense versus creating maintenance problems later? You know, that's actually a great question because centralized fiber has been a thing for a long time. But I did an episode where I went to a school in West Virginia, Richmond, Richmond, I think it was uh middle school, and they gave me a walkthrough where they did exactly what you're talking about. Instead of having multiple telecom rooms all over this building in a school, because we all know schools don't like giving up rooms, right? So what they did was they put these enclosures in the ceiling, ran fiber optic cable to each of those, and that became the telecom room for that footprint. Okay. So there are there, they you can do it. You can absolutely do it. And there are some companies out there, excuse me, if you go back and watch that video, there are some companies out there that will help you design those kinds of systems. Now, the problem is servicing. Okay, number one, a technician's are used to going into a telecom room, looking at a seven-foot two-post rack and troubleshooting that. It's it's a little bit of a change of thought when you're standing on top of a ladder and looking at there's a piece of equipment. And also depends on the environment, because remember, this is a school, so you got to block off the work areas that students walk and walk into you. So there are some things that can happen there that that you got to make some additional considerations for, but it can happen, it can work. And and and ironically, if I remember right, I have to go back and watch that episode. Uh, I can't remember the guy's name who I interviewed because it was too long ago. But he told me that the school district saved a ton of money because of that. So it is possible. Now keep in mind people say, Well, Chuck, yeah, you can't go past 328 feet. That's how Absolutely true. But those the zones uh distributions in the ceiling, the horizontal cable was less than 320 feet. The fiber connected it back to the main. They only had one telecom room for the entire building. And it all went back to that. So you can do it. You absolutely can do it. Question I don't know what the numbers are

Cloud Managed Access Control Changes

SPEAKER_01 22:18

from. Dylan, he says, I'm pretty new to access control, and more customers are asking about cloud managed systems. What changes for the installer when the controller, the credentials, and the management software aren't sitting inside the building anymore? I'll be the first to tell you Chuck's not an access control guy. Chuck's a wire monkey. I'm a structured cabling, voice data, category gate rated cable, fire off the cable, pulling, terminating testing guy. That's me. But with that being said, it's funny this question came up. I just interviewed last night uh Mick from Triton Security in Baltimore, Maryland, and that's gonna be an episode, and that's coming out three. I think about five weeks. Five weeks. I'm that's how far ahead I am I am in my episodes. I'm I'm like five five weeks out in my episodes, which is a good thing for me. Um, because I can actually, if I really wanted to, I could stop recording for five weeks and still have stuff coming out. So it's a good thing for me, right? So yeah, that's um, anyways, cloud connectivity, it becomes part of the commissioning. All that stuff is up in the in the obviously, and by the way, it'll tell you this when it's in the cloud, it's not literally in the clouds, it's on a it's on a server in a data center somewhere, you know, those things that everybody's protesting against right now, right? So you really need to understand, okay, hybrid versus fully cloud deployments. If you're used to just doing standalone things right there, it's gonna be a little bit different type of setup, and that might be a little bit of a learning curve there. And for the technician, you might be actually servicing that, troubleshooting, um, you know, let's say the the door hardware or the readers, that kind of stuff is going to be the same. What's gonna really play into play is is the the setup and the and the uh and the oh my mind just pulled a blank and the um the there's a name for when you credentials, the credentials. That's where that changes.

Hospital Device Growth And Pathways

SPEAKER_01 24:18

Hannah, I've managed healthcare technology projects for about nine years, and hospitals keep adding connected clinical devices faster than we can plan infrastructure around them. How do you design pathways and connectivity when the device mix keeps changing? Great question. And you know, those of you who know me, you know my mom died, I don't know, gosh, two, three months ago. But before that, she spent several months in the hospital. And I even went up to Maryland to visit her a few times. And uh in the hospital, you know me, I can't walk into the building without looking at cable, right? I just can't do it. And so I was sitting there looking at this post, this, this post, a three-sided post they had next to mom's bed, and all the connectivity they had going to it. They weren't used, they were using but maybe one dropout of the whole entire thing. But here's the thing clinical technology is absolutely changing, right? And it's changing between the design and the awkward. Our energy moves literally at the speed of light. Hey, I got 10,000 points. If anybody can tell me what is the speed of light, how fast is that? Most people don't know that. And don't give it to me in meters. This is America, man. Give it to me in miles per second. How fast is the speed of light, right? Um, so yeah, they're changing, adding stuff. A lot, a lot of new medical devices are coming online, switching over to you know, to be put on a network, category rate cables absolutely could do that. But you know, and most of that telemetry stuff is low data bandwidth, cat 5e, cat 6. You know, you really want to go future-proof in Cat 6A. Um, but hospitals tend to be really tight on their budget, so good luck with getting Cat 6A to a hospital. Good luck with that. Um, so always oversaturate, oversaturate. That's it right there. And getting the customer to buy that and see that need and understand that need, those are hurdles that uh my zoo miller, who's now in sales, is gonna have to address with the customer. Next question.

Extended Reach Copper Beyond 100m

SPEAKER_01 26:16

This comes from Cole. I wonder if it's that coal, right? 186,282, 10,000 more points for Ed, the old tech guy. Because most people say 186,000 miles a second. It's 186,282 miles a second. Good job, Mr. Ed. There you go. So Cole that wants to know where's this question at? I've been doing structure cabling for three years, and I recently saw a project using copper links beyond the normal 100 meters. What extended reach cabling is specified? What should installers verify instead of testing it like a normal cable run? Extended cabling has been around for a while now, guys. And yeah, it started off with game changer cable. They're the ones who thought outside the box and started this whole thing. But now every every major manufacturer, Belden, Levin, Panduit, all have some form of extended distance cabling, right? Um, to compete with game changer cable. So they had the market all by themselves, but that's changing, right? So number one is know when the extended reach is actually appropriate. If you're talking low bandwidth, again, cameras. Absolutely good there. But if you if you're doing uh a network, you're doing two and a half gig, extended distance is a little bit more critical there because again, the more the more bandwidth, generally speaking, the shorter the cable has to be. And another thing to think about is does that device need power? Okay, does it need power? Again, if we're talking about cameras, you might have pan-tilt zoom, you might have heaters in the camera. There's this thing called voltage drop, voltage drop, and that has to be calculated because even it might go in as as you know, whatever watts, but it's gonna come out weaker because that it uses energy to get to the other side. So calculate voltage drop. There are online calculators. Um, but you know what, you might want to just contact uh an electrician and ask them to do that for you. The the real problem with that with testing comes when you start talking about testing. Testing, okay? Because testing, no, two things testing and warranty. Testing. So testing, once you go beyond that 100 meters, your tester is gonna kick you a fail. A lot of the trade, a lot of the certifiers now, uh, fluke, uh, AEM. I'm pretty sure Softhing has as well, too. Although I'd have to go back and ask Jalo that again. And also my Mike, my my buddy Mike Grindel. I have to ask him too. I they almost all I guarantee you they probably do. I'd be willing to say they do. And not fear about, but I guarantee they probably have in their profiles how to test extended distance cabling so that way you don't get a fail when you go up beyond that hundred meters. That'll take care of that issue. Then comes the warranty issue, right? The warranty issue. Do you want off-the-shelf kind of parts? Have you asked them about the temperature that that cable was tested at? Because most again, we're talking a lot of times about cameras long distances. They might be outside, they might be in conduit. Temperature affects the performance of the cable. Has that been tested? What kind of warranty comes with that? Is it you know do you have to use this type of this manufacturer's connectivity products to get that warranty? Lots of questions you need to ask on that side. Next question comes from Rebecca.

Recurring Revenue With Service Contracts

SPEAKER_01 29:34

Rebecca, after 18 years in operations, I'm wondering if low voltage companies are leaving money on the table by treating by treating remote monitoring as somebody else's job. Should contractors be building recurring service around the networks as well. MSPs! Yes, anytime you can you can do a service contract. Nick and I Mick and I talked about this just last night on the episode came out five months. Um MSPs, service contracts, right? Best money, best money, easy, because a lot of times it's just money coming in. If you if you are selling, installing structured cabling systems, even if it comes with a warranty, you can still offer them a service contract. Say, okay, well, I know that I know that the manufacturer guarantees this product for 25 years, and uh, yeah, that's fine and dandy. But if you buy our service contract, we will guarantee you that when you call us, we will be on site within less than 24 hours. If you don't, we have 48 hours to get there. That provides value to somebody running a network who has people screaming at them saying, hey, our network's down, our network's down, our network's down, right? So, yes, remote remote monitoring for you know, um alarm systems, access control systems, um, also maintaining networks. Ed could probably talk about that. Um, being able to remotely go into somebody's network and make changes can all be done on under a service contract instead of actually driving to that site. Next question, this comes from Simon.

Making Meetings Work Across Platforms

SPEAKER_01 31:09

Uh uh I'm I'm six years in the AV industry, and customers are getting frustrated when one room works differently, depending on whether they're using Teams, Zoom, or another platform. I feel that pain. How much responsibility should the integrator take for making cross-platform meetings feel consistent? I saw I feel this pain because but you know, because of the podcast, I am I'm using all different platforms. I'm using Riverside, Zoom. From a day job, I use Microsoft Teams. Um, and there's other ones out there, StreamYard, a bunch of others. And I will tell you this every single time I log on to a Teams meeting, the microphone's not set up right, the camera's not set up right. I gotta go fix that. Right? Other platforms, they remember that kind of stuff. So a lot of it is is really the interoperability, it's really it's becoming an owner expectation, but let's play, let's be honest, we're cable guys. And even if you're installing the network, you're when you're trying to design around those multiple conferencing platforms, you're really solely reliant on the platforms themselves. There's some good ones, there's some bad ones. You know, there's a reason why I went through my live streaming software through three different providers before I finally landed on and stuck with Riverside. Okay. I went through StreamYard, I went through um the other one as well, too, and did just and some folks even get frustrated with Riverside because they change stuff. I mean, I gotta figure that out. So the the actual testing, though, should happen before you know, maybe send a again, put that under the service agreement. Go out there and once a month just check those platforms, make sure you can train those users, right? Without creating some type of support dependency, but but you can also make money off

Security Data Versus Building Operations

SPEAKER_01 32:57

that as well. Victor asks, after 14 years of designing security systems, and why am I getting so many security access? I am a wire monkey. All right. Uh, after 14 years of designing security systems and access control, is starting to provide occupancy and operational data for other building systems want to use. How far should we take that integration before a security system becomes responsible for things it was never designed for? Huh, Daryl, the RCD house. Nice, nice. So access data is absolutely becoming operational with building information. And they're starting to track this stuff. It's kind of, you know, they're they're tracking us more and more. This is way beyond flock cameras, by the way. Um, so they're starting to integrate occupancy data with HVAC systems. When do people arrive? When do people leave? Do they leave for lunch? Do they come back from lunch? Do we need to turn the AC on or off at certain times? Right? They're maintaining security as a primary function, but defining the ownership of a shared operational data is the real challenge for a lot of these people, a lot of these systems. Avoiding integrations create unnecessary dependencies. And the problem is, I think this is a wide open area. If you really want to make a gazillion dollars, solve that, solve that issue, and you will find that you got a lot of people signing up for your service. Okay, another

Prefab Fiber Savings And Risk

SPEAKER_01 34:24

question. I'm a project manager, and more manufacturers are offering pre-terminated assemblies and other prefab solutions. How do you decide when prefab actually says labor versus just moving labor somewhere else and adding on as a coordination risk? So I've it's always been my opinion, always been my opinion, and I'll have to run the numbers again because it's been a while since I've done this. Using pre-terminated fiber uses less labor, less labor than actually pulling fiber, terminating fiber, testing fiber. You buy you buy pre-terminated, pre-tested, you literally run it and you plug it in the back of your your adapter panel or your or your cassette system. It they most of them come from the factory, also pre-tested. Pre-tested. Now that sometimes that doesn't resolve you of doing operational testing, just make sure the bulba didn't pull too hard on something. So so you can't save money. The true question is, is you better be spot on with your measurements, right? You don't don't give this to your your foreman. Go do it yourself. Go out and measure the run. Don't forget about the slacks, don't forget about the up and down. Because when it comes to pre-terminate fiber, it's far better to be 20 feet too long than two inches too short. Okay, you can always do extra loops in the fiber slack box. You can't stretch fiber optic cabling. Right. So you will save labor. You're still gonna have to test it. But also another thing to consider is scheduling. Schedule, because when you order pre-terminated fiber trunk assembly, uh it depends on the manufacturer, it depends on the size and the stuff, but there's going to be a lead time. That lead time could be as little as uh uh as little as a couple days or as much as two months, or actually technically it'd even be longer than that because right now people are having a hard time getting their hands on fiber, so it might even be longer. So it might be quicker schedule-wise, to just pull the fiber yourself terminate and get it done and over with. So that's a that's a that's something you'd really need to to to check with. All right. All right, next question. Uh let me see. Oh, this is the last question because I'm already over. Uh, I'm a newer technician and we've been installing more sensors for occupancy air, air quality, space use, usability automation. How to keep all these connected devices without becoming an infrastructure mess that nobody wants to maintain. I answered that question already. I'm gonna go to the next one. Oh, this is actually the last question.

Sustainability Metrics That Matter

SPEAKER_01 36:58

Uh, I've been consulting for more than 20 years, and sustainability requirements are finally showing up as real project criteria instead of marketing language. For those who don't know what sustainability means, sustainability means you find ways that you use less electricity, you have less of an impact with uh on resources because of your business, right? That's what the that's what that means, sustainability. What should Ict designers actually measure if the owner wants a lower impact technology infrastructure? Okay, number one, first off, measuring energy. Um here's the thing, right? Partner with a manufacturer who's who already has a huge push towards sustainability. There, there are several manufacturers out there that are doing this right now, and uh and they they they do things from finding ways to put QR codes on packages so you don't have you know um paper instructions inside your kits. They do things like when they send pre-termate fiber tongue assemblies, they they put them on cardboard uh um slice inside of an envelope, and they'll spray the cardboard with a special chemical to stop the dust from getting on the end faces. If they are if the company is sustainable, they can give you that. And then you can pass that along to the to the to the end user. Because there are some end users who don't care about price, they really care about we want to be a good corporate citizen. We want to make sure that you know we are somehow lessen our carbon footprint. Okay, but just keep in mind anytime you start talking like that, the price of the project is going to go up. That's just a that's just the way that it is, and uh and nobody's business. Uh, we had a whole bunch of

Wrap-Up And Final Word

SPEAKER_01 38:40

questions here. Let me pop in there real quick. All righty. So Shotzi says, lost track of time. Welcome, Mr. Shotzi. Uh then uh doo-boo boo-boo. I can't read that. Uh, this just showed up on my feed, so I thought I'd stop by and give a thumbs up. Well, thank you for that, sir. I appreciate that. Uh, I guess there's a channel for everything. There is a channel for everything. Absolutely. So that's good for tonight's show. I'm gonna go ahead and log off and uh let's go ahead and uh close this out. And till next time, remember, knowledge is power.