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My company is moving in the Fall and we are deciding on how to network the new office. 60 cubes and offices, along with some conference rooms and common areas. Pretty typical common office space.

I was planning on just having runs from the IT closet run directly to each cube/office. Our architect suggested perhaps having runs go to some wall plates where the cubes meet the wall to save some costs. Then we’d just run patch cables from the wall plates to the individual cubes ourselves.

I wonder if there is any sort of reason to prefer one over the other? I have some of my own ideas, but in the spirit of not spoiling my question with leads, I’m curious about others’ opinions on this.

Also, since we don’t need phone handsets (most people using softphones), we are also considering not even bothering wiring all the cubes. We’ve got a strong Meraki wifi network…

Any thoughts on saving the wiring costs and just using all WiFi?

Thanks for all your inputs!

25 Spice ups
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No matter how great WiFi can be, I still sleep better with a hard wired LAN as a primary.

40 Spice ups
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All Wifi…I just don’t like it. Total central point of failure. Wifi has come a long way in short amount of time but still not without its problems.

I’d run cabling to wall plates in each cubicle because that is how I do it. I suppose it wouldn’t hurt if a few cubicles were sharing one wall plate.

If they are going to be A/D and file sharing and all that nonsense; wire em. Runs to a patch panel to a 1GBbs switch.

Cat6 to future proof yourself.

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IMO, wall plates are the way to go. You always know exactly where that drop is, and it gives you the flexibility to use whatever length cable from wall to device without having to worry about service loops or extenders.

Also, I’d never ditch a wired network strictly for wireless. As a supplement? Of course. But even a 5 year old wired network will out-perform the newest wireless infrastructures. I would proceed with caution and have a backup plan in place if you decide to go strictly wireless.

10 Spice ups
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Amen to that

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Sucks that Cat6 is a PIA to work with

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First off i personally would still run a cable to each cube.

As far as getting cables to the cubes i have seen it many ways. I have seen the wall plates then patch cables to the cubes. But i really don’t like that way. I have seen a patch panel in the ceiling above a cube array. That way is not to bad. Its clean and can be reconfigured really easy. Then from the patch panel to the cube wall plate. Then from the cube plate to the PC. Then i have also seen home run cables directly to the cube knock outs and a wall plate put in there. To me this is the best way. Less connections, and cleaner look, and the cable is not exposed.

But mainly i think your contractor is wanting to be lazy. Because there are places for plates in your cubes. And whether its a home run to the cube or there is wall plates or patch panels in between. You should use the plates and knock outs in the cubes. It looks cleaner and its alot easier in the long run.

5 Spice ups
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You could run cat6a if you really want to future proof yourself. It has went down in price quite a bit over the last couple of months.

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Thanks for all of the quick replies!

I want to run Cat6, 1 per person. Management is looking to maybe cut costs by only doing wireless, so I appreciate any insights around reliability and performance of using wire vs wired.

Regarding wall plates vs home runs to the cubes, is there any technical advantage to one over the other?

Also, the last time I had quotes for this type of work it was charged per drop, regardless of length or type of termination (cube box or wall plate). Are installers still doing it this way or would it be more expensive to pull to the cube box? I haven’t spoken with any installers yet, looking to find out what others are experiencing so I can go in informed.

This is in Boston, if it makes any difference how things are charged regionally.

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Run the jacks in the wall, you may re-configure down the road and they will be useful in the future.

Cubes are usually run through a conduit and meet at the floor to be pulled through the panel in the cube with A/C Electric

3 Spice ups
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Consider two drops. The additional cable won’t cost much more. Wall plates will look hoopty. Bring it to the cube.

wireless as only method=fail=management fail

If you’re in a high rise downtown it’s likely the cable installers need to be union. I have a good contact who’s a low cost union cable installer. They wired up about 80 drops for us in February. Let me know if you want his contact info. They’re very trustworthy.

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IIRC I had about 80 locations with two CAT6 drops each in downtown Boston. Roughly $30K.

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I would agree with everyone by doing CAT6. but instead of just one cable being strung to each cube, i would run 2 to each cube as a way of having some redundancy incase the primary strand fails. Just to add my 2 cents to it.

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Never run off just wi-fi.

Also, where ever you run one data line, you run two. Never know when you might need it and if you are using a vendor to install it usually doesn’t cost any extra to pull a second line when they are already pulling one.

Better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it.

As far as running directly to the cubes, I would ask if you ever plan to or can foresee the office layout changing to where cubes get rearranged or removed. Then you’ll have to move cabling with it.

If there is a chance of that, then I would lean more towards running patch cables to the locations where it makes sense.

The last thing you want to do is paint yourself into a corner. If they are going to do things fresh from the beginning, then they should be willing to do things right.

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I would run Cat 6 to the wall and not the cubes, simply because the cubes are not permanent. At some point, they may want to change the carpet (or install it if none), or replace the cubicles. Who knows?
As for the # of runs, you mentioned one run per user. Consider two runs per person but terminate one of two. This leaves room for growth without running another. All you would have to do is terminate the second.
Also, as we are doing now, VoIP phones usually have a GB port out, so one cable run serves two nodes, which is a great cost-per-port on the switch

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Does anybody have desktops or does everyone have laptops?

If you go wireless I’d suggest to invest on 802.11ac, decent speeds and 5Ghz isn’t so crowded. I’ve seen many places where 2.4Ghz is so crowded that it is useless and computers with 2.4Ghz-only radio can’t really use wireless anymore.

I got ultrabook without wired nic and on 802.11ac, works just fine. I haven’t got any urges to get the USB nic and connect to wire.

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If money is really that tight, get a quote for CAT5 and CAT6. Pricing for CAT6 several years ago was pretty high around here. We went CAT5 and haven’t had issues; we’ll outgrow this space before we’d ever touch CAT6 speeds.

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How long is the lease? For us we spent about $30K but we’ll be in the space for 5 years. That’s only $6K per year.

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That sounds about right for a quality job.

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mrbostn, please pm me that installer contact info. I want to get a few quotes, it’s great to hear a positive review.