Acutally service has been rock solid for me BEFORE the bankrupt bit. Broadband customer since 1999, 3 outages in all before the Regis family was thrown in the can, 2 of them due to natural diaster (gotta love blizzards) the other fixed before the tech even arrived at the door.
During and after, oh it's been a nightmare. It seems to have stablized though. And they just recently upgraded their caps, probally because they have more bandwidth available with fewer customers:)
I'm a data installer for a large state university in the US. The the local, state, and federal governments have no problem with "uncertified" individuals working with various data and voice cabling mediums.
Granted, we have licensed individuals to do all our AC work, such as running power to the racks in the data center, and more often than not they pull ethernet and fiber for us, because it's part of their trade, and keeps them busy. (Our in-house elecs are really nice guys).
When it comes down to the termination and actual connection of data and fiber, certification isnt required.
A note of the telephone side of the table -- same situtation. We have phone techs who are responsible for the installation, activation, and maintenance of the phone networks, again certification not needed.
We follow the TIA/EIA standards and the University has it's own more stringent set of rules on top of that regarding closet layout and like matters.
In my experience I have found that when we contract a job out in some instances -- when a new building or addition is in need of a plethora of data and voice lines -- the licensed contractors do awful work. Great, you're licensed, and insured...but that means nothing when you can't even count! (It's happened, really...). Sometimes they make the situtation worse and you have to spend additional resources correcting issues.
And I work in a public institution. Private business should be able to meet their data and voice needs as they see fit. Having a competent individual do the job is one thing, but licensing and the mandates you describe are overboard. It sounds like the government has its nose way to deep into your business. Most likely with pressure from unions to form such regulation.
Having a standard that says a cable that gives of toxins when burned in air spaces is a bad thing is one matter. Forcing you to rely on a paticular labor force to meet some basic needs is another.
Last I checked the risk of life involved in data networks is minimial to the installer, almost non existant to the end user. I'm sure technologies like Power over Ethernet (PoE) bring about new challanges and risks.
Slashdot Mirror
Oops...
:)
Contiuning...
Acutally service has been rock solid for me BEFORE the bankrupt bit. Broadband customer since 1999, 3 outages in all before the Regis family was thrown in the can, 2 of them due to natural diaster (gotta love blizzards) the other fixed before the tech even arrived at the door.
During and after, oh it's been a nightmare. It seems to have stablized though. And they just recently upgraded their caps, probally because they have more bandwidth available with fewer customers
Lets see what the next round brings.
I live in Buffalo. That explains some things. >_>
I'm a data installer for a large state university in the US. The the local, state, and federal governments have no problem with "uncertified" individuals working with various data and voice cabling mediums.
Granted, we have licensed individuals to do all our AC work, such as running power to the racks in the data center, and more often than not they pull ethernet and fiber for us, because it's part of their trade, and keeps them busy. (Our in-house elecs are really nice guys).
When it comes down to the termination and actual connection of data and fiber, certification isnt required.
A note of the telephone side of the table -- same situtation. We have phone techs who are responsible for the installation, activation, and maintenance of the phone networks, again certification not needed.
We follow the TIA/EIA standards and the University has it's own more stringent set of rules on top of that regarding closet layout and like matters.
In my experience I have found that when we contract a job out in some instances -- when a new building or addition is in need of a plethora of data and voice lines -- the licensed contractors do awful work. Great, you're licensed, and insured...but that means nothing when you can't even count! (It's happened, really...). Sometimes they make the situtation worse and you have to spend additional resources correcting issues.
And I work in a public institution. Private business should be able to meet their data and voice needs as they see fit. Having a competent individual do the job is one thing, but licensing and the mandates you describe are overboard. It sounds like the government has its nose way to deep into your business. Most likely with pressure from unions to form such regulation.
Having a standard that says a cable that gives of toxins when burned in air spaces is a bad thing is one matter. Forcing you to rely on a paticular labor force to meet some basic needs is another.
Last I checked the risk of life involved in data networks is minimial to the installer, almost non existant to the end user. I'm sure technologies like Power over Ethernet (PoE) bring about new challanges and risks.
Bottomline, who's to benifit?
Damn politics.