Basically, I’m building a home and getting it wired with Ethernet cabling. I didn’t want to get too much into the technical details, so I just provided the builders with locations where I want RJ45 ports, along with one spot where I just said “24-port patch panel” (the number of ports located elsewhere being 22.
I did some Googling and figured the patch panel should cost at most $150 in hardware costs (I found plenty of sub-$100 options, but a couple of more expensive ones and would not have been . I didn’t mention anything about needing a rack because I thought it would be something that could just go directly in the wall. (And then I could buy a switch and use it to connect pretty much all the ports from the patch panel to the router.)
The builder came back to me with an estimated cost of:
- $465 for a server cabinet: SEVCBN -6RU – 66WM
- $567 for a patch panel: NCO760242563
- $148 install charge
They gave me specific model numbers for the patch panel and server cabinet, but I can’t find information about whether that’s the actual cost of them, because the costs are locked behind having an account with the B2B retailers.
Does their proposed patch panel costing about 4x what I was expecting actually seem likely to give any value? Is there are explanation for that cost?
Secondary question: is having a wall-mounted cabinet worthwhile? How will it work in terms of installing a switch and connecting from the patch panel to the switch?
Thanks!
You can probably ask them to pull the wires there but not install or terminate them for a patch panel.
Because you specified a patch panel, they probably quoted for the installation of the rack and the patch panel, as it’s not there and therefore they need it to complete the task completely.
You’ll end up with loose unterminated wires you can then just put an RJ45 plug on and wire directly to a switch or whatever.
I’d just manage the actual patching with VLANs on the switch. Unless you plan a more complex setup with some jacks going directly to a server or other routers/switches, it should be plentiful to just have 24 live ports you can plug devices into. Fair amount of switches can be simply wall mounted without a rack.
I’m actually not looking to do anything very complicated at all. Just connect the internet box directly to the router (via the patch panel). Router itself connected to a switch, and then all my other devices connected to the switch (with every connection to the switch going via the patch panel). I don’t have any plans to do anything with different networks, just the one local network.
The reason for having the patch panel is so I have a simple plug-and-play way of connecting everything up. I didn’t think it would be any different to having a standard walk jack, but with 24 ports instead of 1–4.
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At my home they quoted me for retail price + 200% markup. I just told them to lay an empty conduit.
The main issue is that after ten years I only passed a single cable from the 24 ports switch because I’m lazy
Yeah I’m definitely willing to pay to get it done, because I’m sure I’ll be the same if I don’t.
But the cost they’re suggesting for the patch panel is (including the cabinet, which I was expecting to be my own after-the-fact expense not budgeted as part of this) about 4x what I would have expected even after budgeting things at the high end of what I thought might happen. $150 instead of <$100 for the hardware, and $150 for the labour was my expectation.
And that’s without even getting in to the cost of the actual cables. I didn’t put it in this post because it was already long enough and I figure it’s a basically separate issue. But they’re wanting to charge me $266 per cable. No modification for the fact that more than half the cables are going to just 2 locations, and all the others are two cables to the same location. Just a straight $266 for every individual cable. It’s meant this whole thing has blown out way beyond where I was expecting it to be.
Out of interest, if you do just get them to lay empty conduit, how easy/hard would it be to run 4 or 8 cables through that conduit and fit it to a faceplate later on?
I second this sentiment.
It gives better flexibility going forward and you save that money for now. When ready, you can decide wall mount or free standing rack, patch panel or none or anything you wish to change once you’ve had time to consider the issue more thoroughly.
I never installed any additional patch panels. Instead I just put the RJ-45 end on and plug straight into the switch. Easier and I never have any problems doing so.
Interesting. So you’d suggest just getting the conduit put in? How hard and/or expensive/cheap would it be it run 4 or 8 cables through that conduit later on, compared to (a reasonable charge for) getting it done while the rest of the wiring is being done?
Seems high. And no. Any patch panel will work. Hell even unify has keystone patch panels for $20. I like the keystone ones, can color coordinate, remove,rearrange, etc. Not permanently patched to a single panel.
If they’re doing all the cable runs and patching, sounds about right. Just let them do it all, make sure it all works and be done. Going to stress yourself out over $200 and it will take 3x as long as you shop around. Get a 2nd quote, but don’t stress that much better to have it done and done right than pinch pennies and deal with a half working or half setup system. Down the line.
To be clear, the numbers in the OP are just for the patch panel itself, and the cabinet to house it.
On top of that, they’re charging $266 per cable (running 4 cables to the same destination? $1064.) That includes installing the wall plates at the other end, buying the cable itself (cat 6a), and the act of running the cables. I didn’t mention that part in the OP because I’m pretty confident it’s a huge rip-off, more on the order of thousands of dollars (22 cables total for an asking price of $5852 or a reasonable price of, by my worst-case-scenario calculations, $3000) on top of the several hundred that I think they’re ripping me off for the patch panel.
For reference, how I arrived at the $3000. Spoilered out so you don't have to see it if you don't care.
- I estimate 20 m per wire (house is less than 20 m long, only 5 m wide, patch panel is roughly in the middle on the lower of two floors, so the direct path is certainly much shorter than 20 m and I figured having enough to go the straight there and back should probably account for the distance travelled in the walls one way.)
- 24 wires (it’s actually 22, but since the patch panel is 24 and I’m trying to overestimate everything…)
- That’s a total of 480 m of wire
- 300 m of wire costs about $300 from the first store I found. Let’s just grab 2 of those to get up to 600 m, comfortably over the estimate.
- $600 in parts
- There are 7 separate destinations. One of those destinations requires 8 separate wires so let’s count it as 2 destinations in case you can wire 4 to a destination in one go but 8 is too many. That’s 8 destinations.
- $100/hr in labour
- I have no idea how long it takes. Let’s say 3 hours per destination? That feels like an overestimate. (Plus a static 4 hours on top of that for the patch panel.)
- $2400 in labour
- $3000 for the cables, not including patch panel
- $150 for the patch panel
- $3150 total, round that up to $3,500, less than half of what they’re quoting and still probably a slight rip-off (but a rip-off on the scale I’d accept for the reasons you describe—just get it done, don’t stress, better to make sure it’s done right)
So I’m looking at getting a different builder/electrician in to do this part of the job anyway and mainly wanted to know if there was something I didn’t understand about the patch panel in particular.
Fuck that then. I thought it was for the whole job.
Does their proposed patch panel costing about 4x what I was expecting actually seem likely to give any value? Is there are explanation for that cost?
I don’t know if there are “high tech” patch panels. They are mostly very simple, especially for use cases like yours. Maybe ask your builder how they justify the price?
For reference: Here in europe I could buy a panel with 24 CAT.6a ports for about 55€ on ebay. A panel for keystone modules would cost me 15€ plus 45€ for 24 CAT.6a modules. I would recommend to use keystone modules, because they are more flexible. The module is attached to the cable and then just clicked into the panel. This way you can easily detach or reorder the cables if needed.
Secondary question: is having a wall-mounted cabinet worthwhile?
Yes.
How will it work in terms of installing a switch and connecting from the patch panel to the switch?
You would mount both components in the cabinet and connect them with short patch cables like this:
https://media.startech.com/cms/products/gallery_large/rk1224walhm.f.jpg
Ok thanks a heap for that picture, because that’s an aspect I was actually confused about. So the patch panel will end up connected through at the front instead of being flush with the wall? And the wires would just be run out of the wall through to the front of the panel?
Here in europe I could buy a panel with 24 CAT.6a ports for about 55€ on ebay
Yeah without looking very hard I can find multiple options around $50 in Australia, and even lower. The $150 figure is pretty much the most expensive option I found in my quick search, and was really meant to contrast with the seemingly-excessive $567 the builder is quoting. (Basically, my goal is to “steel man” them, and point out that even if I take the prices in the most extreme way at every option, it still ends up way cheaper than they’re quoting.)
I would recommend to use keystone modules, because they are more flexible
Out of interest, what’s the alternative? Is it that the cables would be hard wired directly into a particular port of the patch panel and not be movable?
So the patch panel will end up connected through at the front instead of being flush with the wall? And the wires would just be run out of the wall through to the front of the panel?
The cables would come out of your wall, go into the back of the network cabinet and would then be clicked into the patchpanel from behind. From the front of the cabinet you will just see RJ45 ports that you then can connect to your switch. The back of the patchpanel will look something like this.
Out of interest, what’s the alternative? Is it that the cables would be hard wired directly into a particular port of the patch panel and not be movable?
Exactly. The patchpanel would provide a board where you could patch your cables into (like this).
Another thing I would recommend is having a “service loop”. That means leaving a bit of extra cable when exiting the wall in case you need it. Otherwise you might need to pull a whole new cable if something unforseen happens and that sucks.
