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If you put new ethernet cables into a building, and you know that there will be N people working in a room. Each person has one PC and one VoIP telephone.
How many Ethernet cable drops would you put into this room?
The VoIP phones have an integrated hub. This way one cable per person would be enough.
In my case there N will be small. In the rooms will be about 2 up to 6 people.
Please leave a comment if you don't understand something.
guettli
Posted 2015-01-20T16:30:34.173
Reputation: 347
2
While the obvious answer is 2 * Number of people - and this is a good starting point, it may make more sense to be driven by the layout and dimensions of the room.
If money is no issue, If its office space I'd be inclined to work out how many desks I can put in and then cables and (dual) power points for each place a desk can go to allow for future expansion.
If its residential (unlikely here I guess) or money is an issue, I'd put 4 jacks on each wall (presumably 16 in total) and run switches and cables as required - if your network is complex you will need to weigh up the cost/benefit and reliability issues related to running multiple switches - and if your phones are PoE powered you will want to take that into account as well (A single PoE switch is easier to manage and cheaper then deploying small switches and added PSU's - and not all VOIP phones have power supplies (for example Polycoms its an added extra).
A third way of gripping the problem is to mirror the number of power jacks with ethernet cables (but leave a bit of space between the power jacks and ethernet cables - you don't want to run the cables together). This would work on the assumption that you will be limited by your power cables.
davidgo
Posted 2015-01-20T16:30:34.173
Reputation: 49 152
+1 - it's expensive to retrofit them, so add them now. – cpast – 2015-01-20T18:53:07.637
Is there any known level of future growth? For instance, are you expecting that within a certain amount of time you will be adding X number of personnel or devices? – jwatts1980 – 2015-01-20T16:33:27.143
2I've voted to close this as "primarily opinion-based", but it's also off-topic for SU (IMO). – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 – 2015-01-20T16:34:22.883
@Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 is there a stackexchange site for questions about cabling? The tag exists, maybe it is not off topic. It is a bit opinion based. That's true. – guettli – 2015-01-20T16:36:37.863
@guettli This may be beyond your scope, but it may be helpful nonetheless: http://serverfault.com/questions/227821/what-is-the-best-network-design-for-a-new-multi-floor-building
– jwatts1980 – 2015-01-20T16:40:32.1803
Just because a tag exists doesn't mean any question that's related to it is on-topic. :) If you were having a technical problem with your cabling in your home network then it would be on-topic to use the "cable" tag (for example). Your question is completely opinion based. You know how may cables you need, so anything beyond that is just want. Do you "want" to future proof? If so, run more cables. How many? Good question, we can't guess your business's future needs any better than you. Perhaps run conduits first. :)
– Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 – 2015-01-20T16:41:07.793remember with VOIP phones you need 2 cables. Switch to phone, phone to PC. – Keltari – 2015-01-20T16:45:38.387
The number of cables you need to support
Npeople isN * X.Nis the number of cables you need to support 1 person andXis the number of people. For examples ( 1 ethernet + 2 VoIP cables ) * 1 = 3 cables. – Ramhound – 2015-01-20T16:47:39.847If they're not plastered into the wall ;-) & you leave at least one pull-wire in every conduit, you can update at any time. Emergency pull-wire can always be one of the existing cables, if you forgot – Tetsujin – 2015-01-20T17:17:27.933
@guettli the closest I can think of would be DIY, but really this isn't answerable as-is - as you mention, a single cable can support multiple users with a switch at the end, and I see no reason to distinguish between VOIP phones and computers, as they both use the same network. You need to add bandwidth requirements to each one, assume worst case, and then model future usage needs.
– user2813274 – 2015-01-20T18:10:57.953@user2813274 Although you can run VOIP phones and computers on the same connection in a small, lightly used LAN, VOIP networks should be separated from computer networks as they require QoS and large transfers from computers can badly impact VOIP. Also VOIP phones may want to use PoE switches (even older ones would be OK) while paying for PoE ports which are not going to be used is wasteful - – davidgo – 2015-01-20T22:23:57.777