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

Sounds like Pro-Union Legislation

[MikeDawg]

What it sounds like to me is that Australia has some pro-union legislation in place. I'm not familiar with Australia, or the job force down there; but after reading this article it sounds like there are some unions down there that got some legislation passed in their favor.

Re:Sounds like Pro-Union Legislation

[gl4ss]

exactly.

though, is it just for permanent installations? make yours 'non-permanent'... in other words, just leave the cables on the floor in one big mess.

and see how easy it would be to register yourself as a cabler..

Re:Sounds like Pro-Union Legislation

[4of12]

This is a perfect example of why groups of people should not be allowed to exert political influence, and how unions can turn bad (since, in their basic form (group bargaining for employment benefits), a union is a great thing).

I'd be more broad minded in my criticism.

Yes, unions can act badly, creating this obvious market inefficiency due to their aggregated power in the labor-selling marketplace.

But, just as concentrated power in the labor market can be bad, there are at least as many if not more examples of where market dominance by corporations cause inherent inefficiencies in the free market system.

The most efficient system is where there aer large numbers of buyers and sellers of labor (or anything else). As the number of either decreases, then one or the other side are in a position to take advantage of the market for their own gain, be they unions or employers.

In my world, the intersecting set of employees and stockholders would be much larger than it is today.

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."

Re:Pay off your lawmakers

[Anonymous Coward]

[H]is rather amusing and refreshingly honest answer was, "because you didn't pay your lawmakers as much as the distribution cartel did."

And you call yourselves a yacht club?!? Get some more millionaires in there!

AU governments site down

[nberardi]

Looks like the AU government's website needs to be audited. They obviously don't have the bandwidth to handle a /. :)

One Word

[Deanasc]

Wireless!

Lemme put on my Union Hat.

[clintp]

My father was a Unionized employee, and actually was part of the UAW hierarchy. He didn't believe it all, but since it was a requirement he had to push the propaganda. I can guess what it'd say:

*screws on hat tightly, to cut off circulation to brain*

"Union Cable Layers would have been trained as apprentices in this kind of work, and received whatever other training was necessary for local building codes, etc...

Your average Joe would do a slipshod job and your cabling would be sub-standard and not work as well. In addition, an untrained cable-monkey might lay cables in places that were dangerous to the rest of the building structures (across high voltage, etc..) and possibly causing disaster and lawsuits. You wouldn't want that, would you?

And if you even think of doing this yourself, expect to get a visit from the brotherhood of Electricians, Cable Layers and Egg Candlers Local 547."

Ahem.

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.

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).

Quality work?

[jim_redwagon]

Did anyone else notice the fine job the 'registered cabler' did installing the RJ45 on page 2 of the brochure? That's quality, dead on center work there. ;-)

But what if they are right?

[azav]

As I read all the responses, and remember that I do live in earthquake central (SF Bay area), I wonder, "what if the govt is right - at least in principle?"

Sure, plugging in cables is NOT HARD but yes, there are other things to worry about - fire shielding, run through an area people will not want to nail or drill into, and probably more that we don't know about. Stuff that once is mentioned, makes perfect sense but wouldn't be thought up unless someone mentioned it.

Hey, in California, I can see why you would need to be licensed to install PVC pipes. These earthquake things don't happen all the time but when they do, you'll want good bracing and give in your plumbing.

And then again, other parts of CA, do tend to get washed out with mudslides or decide to catch on fire on a semi yearly basis.

All I'm saying is that there's proooobably more behind the scenes that we're dismissing because we don't know about it.

This Old House

[St. Arbirix]

This reminds me of the time Bob Villa built his own house and I think aired some of the construction on his show. As soon as he got done the State of California stepped in and told him that since he didn't get any permits or professional electricians/plumbers/carpenters to work on the house they were going to have to condemn the place.

It's too expensive to be a general handyman for anything anymore.

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

Another advangate of pro cablers

[sakusha]

The cable pullers I hired always knew what EVERYONE in town was doing. They knew who was installing new computers, who had new facilities, and what was going on in new labs all over town. So hire a pro cable puller, offer them some coffee, and get strategic intelligence on all your competitors. Just make sure you don't reveal to them what YOU'RE doing.