AU Regulations on LAN Cabling?

An anonymous reader asks: "After getting a ridiculous quote for the cost of rewiring an office, I started investigating the possibility of doing all the phone/data cabling myself. About 40 RJ-45 ports all coming back to a central patch panel that would be patched into the phone or data switch as needed. My research found that doing this simple job would be illegal in Australia, according to the Australian Communications Authority's (ACA) website. According to them, they have the right to walk in at any time and demand an audit of your LAN, and if it was not installed by a registered cabler, you can be fined up to $13,000. My question is, how does this compare to legislation in other parts of the world? Also, has anyone in Australia ever been subject to one of these 'cabling audits'? Was it painful?"

Comments

RTFA

[Merlin42]

Did you actually look at the website you linked to?
On the front page it has a link to a pdf listing results from the 2004 inspections / audits. I think it was something like 600 inspections and 400 audits.

The site has gone down now and I closed acrobat reader so I can't find the exact info.

Pay off your lawmakers

[linuxwrangler]

Seriously, this sort of regulation is generally passed in the name of "protecting" the consumer but in reality it is protecting the outrageous charges of the "registered cablers".

It happens all over. In California, IIRC, we still can't install plastic water supply lines in houses because they are "unsafe". Funny, though, that they seem to be safe in lots of other states. I'm quite sure that the donations from the plumbing contractors and pipefitters' unions doesn't come into play at all.

Our yacht club can't buy booze at Costco because the regulations require us to buy from a "distributor", not a manufacturer or retailor. At a informational meeting for club officers the ABC (alcoholic beverage control) spokesman was pestered with the question "why can't we just go to Costco?" and his rather amusing and refreshingly honest answer was, "because you didn't pay your lawmakers as much as the distribution cartel did."

Applies to cabling companies only (?)

[LordEd]

I grabbed this line before the site got /.ed:

"The Cabling Requirements for Business Code requires cabling businesses to ensure that cablers working for them do cabling work that meets the CPRs." (my bold)

So the way it sounds to me is that if you are a cabling business and either provide poor quality or subcontract poor quality work, you can be fined for it.

Plenum

[bloosqr]

The reasoning is that most people do not realize cabling can be serious fire hazards. You can not use regular cat* cable when wiring up an office and/or house but must use plenum rated cable. Furthermore generic cables can have toxic side effects when burning. There is an interesting history of the use of pvc versus plenum here.

Also take a look at the cable faq and you will notice that it is very obvious that one really must be careful in installing the right type of cable w/ the appropriate firestops between floors (etc).

Re:Plenum

[sribe]

You can not use regular cat* cable when wiring up an office and/or house but must use plenum rated cable.

No you don't. You need to use plenum cable when you run cable through a plenum. That's why they call it plenum cable. If you don't know what the word plenum means, maybe you should look up plenum somewhere.

Actually...

[LordEd]

You must use plenum when wiring through air ducts/passageways in home/offices. The reason is that the regular plastic casing becomes toxic (as do many things when burned), so you want to limit that toxicity to a single room instead of across your entire building transmitted through air ducts. You can use regular cat for wiring that does not involve bridging floors or that goes through ventilation areas.

From the FAQ:

Plenum: Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning (HVAC) air return area -- mostly drop ceilings. Also below raised floors (where the underfloor area is used for ventilation).

Cost & LV licensing

[redelm]

What do you consider an outrageous quote? I'd expect about US$100/run, or US $4000 for your job. Less if uncertified, everything is short and can be gang pulled. More if spread apart or difficult to run.

Licensing is a different issue. LAN cabling is considered low-voltage electric wiring and various governments sometimes like to control it. Sometimes for the permit & licence income, sometimes to support guilds, occasionally even for public protection (EMI & plenum smoke hazard). I believe *.de requires licencing.

It goes like this :

[ColaMan]

About 15 years ago, our australian telco (Telecom in those days) began to lose it's monopoly. Authorities realised that soon just about any joe from just about any company would be coming around ,fiddling with phone lines. But, oops. Telecom (now telstra) still owns the local loop of copper between the exchange and your house.... and the potential for fark-related-hilarity was obvious to most people.

What to do?

Austel, the telecommunications authority, decided to implement a licensing scheme. Basically , if any part of your network interfaces with the phone lines coming from the street, well, you need to be an austel-licensed cabler to do anything with it. Becoming an austel licensed cabler is not hard, any monkey can do go through the motions.

Perhaps you should investigate asterisk (as some people have mentioned previously). Get all your lines terminated at a patch panel, put a nice server in the cupboard and ethernet from there on out to IP phones and the like. It might come out at the same price at the end, but you'll end up with a much more flexible system. You'll also have the advantage of getting on the IP telecom bandwagon and probably save a heap'o'cash in the long run on your phone bills.

Re:Lemme put on my Union Hat.

[Ykant]

An egg candler is a person that inspects eggs, originally by holding an egg up to a candle and looking through.

There was a time when this was a necessary position, as most people are loathe to break open an egg for their cake batter and pour in an embryo.

Hmmmm ... not quite

[jann]

I am an Australian Network engineer (LAN and WAN) and have done a lot of work in/with the telecommunications sector.

The requirement actually is "thou shal not connect anything to the PSTN" which is not austel approved and/or installed by a licenced installer. You can do anything you want with your LAN, you can do anything you want with your telephone cabling on your companies side of the PABX ... but you are not allowed to play with the PSTN side.

But, get your cabeling done by pros unless you know what you are doing. Ask yourself these quick questions:

Do I know when to use single core cable rather than 3 strand (and can I tell the difference between the RJ connectors for them)?
What is the maximim distance for an ethernet cable run?
Do I understand how to terminate cables and their wiring patterns?
Do I know how to test a wiring run?

If you didn't answer an emphatic yes to all those q's get the pros in. If you want to play at cabel monkey do it at home.

J