It's not a good idea to send cabling through ventilation ducts (in fact, it's against the elctrical codes in US and Canada) The major concern is possiblity of electrical surges that may appear on the communication cable, which would lead to sparks in a dusty environment, which is bad.
Up here in Canada, the Electrical Code states that you should maintain at least 24" clearance between your communication lines and any power lines. This is a really good idea, since there is a lot of noise that can be inducted into your phone lines if the shielding on the cable sucks.
As for conduit, just use plain old PVC. Nice, simple, and cheap. For your purposes, probably a.75" or 1", if you're planning on running lots of CAT 5 through it.
Slashdot Mirror
It's not a good idea to send cabling through ventilation ducts (in fact, it's against the elctrical codes in US and Canada) The major concern is possiblity of electrical surges that may appear on the communication cable, which would lead to sparks in a dusty environment, which is bad.
Up here in Canada, the Electrical Code states that you should maintain at least 24" clearance between your communication lines and any power lines. This is a really good idea, since there is a lot of noise that can be inducted into your phone lines if the shielding on the cable sucks.
.75" or 1", if you're planning on running lots of CAT 5 through it.
As for conduit, just use plain old PVC. Nice, simple, and cheap. For your purposes, probably a