Jake

Hehe , true Thing is, I am a Network Technician, to me that means I do sparky stuff. If I was dealing with just software then I would consider myself to be a Network Administrator..not a technician. In my mind there is a fundamental difference between an administrator and a technician. Mind you..trouble with having my own contracting business would be that I wouldnt get all the lovely holidays and finish nice and early each day , though I suppose as it would be my business I could always do that anyway lol But then again, I dont think I would like my own business, too much hassle, too much stress, too much mindwork. Seen far too many folks try their own businesses and had it destroy their lives. I'm happy to work for someone else, doing the stuff I do, and leaving my work at work when I head home But you are certainly right, its very interesting how large the differences are in what some IT technicians do compared to other IT technicians. Its amazing how varied all of our workdays are compared to each other, especially when you consider that many of us essentially have the same job title. Perhaps there should be some variation of job title...maybe have Network Co-ordinator, Network Administrator, Network Technician. Something like that. EDIT : Thinking on it further..a better description for what I do might be Network Engineer. So Network Co-ordinator, Network Administrator, Network Technician and Network Engineer

Indeed..and its shown just how different all of our roles and campus/limitations and environments are within whats, essentially, the same jobs. Quite enlightening

LOL, our drill isnt quite that big, though sometimes I wish it was (aside from which I have been running my own cabling for 7 years now, so I tend not to drill willy nilly )

Well, as everyone starts to siphon away and head home, I want to at least thank everyone for this thread today. Although it seems several tempers got a little more raised, its certainly helped to take my mind off the insane heat and help pass the time

Indeed and beats paying several hundred quid to someone for doing something that I can do myself. Then I can use that several hundred for a nice shiny new laser printer heh

We are lucky in that none of our buildings contain asbestos. The right path is not a problem, and we have all the right tools to make the right holes

Making a run from a cabinet on a 2nd floor, to a new IT suite on the 3rd floor, running to say 32 points (or whatever) really doesnt involve much more knowledge than being able to make up your own patch cable. Certainly I would think everyone here knows how to make a patch cable, so there isnt much problem in doing it. We have testing hardware for the cabling runs, just to double check of course.

So very true..hell if I was an expert in anything , I would be doing that for large sums of money. Probably even more so if I was an expert in cabling, bet I could earn wadloads being a cabling expert. Likewise servers, coding...pretty much any aspect of it really, if I was an expert at it, I wouldnt be a Technician in a school I'm an expert gamer..but it doesnt pay too well

LOL, nice news about the pay rise, and I wouldnt be concerned about the caps...seems the heat has raised the temperatures of many folks on the internet this afternoon

We have testing hardware to verify the cabling yes.

Our LEA is about as useful as a Lebonese bomb shelter. Frankly I would rather our LEA be Compuserve than who they are, they are that much use. Virtually the entire staff at our LEA has as much knowledge of PC's as Queen Victoria and are about as willing to give us £5 saving on anything as they are willing to give us their first born child.

figured they might be...so thats fibre and laser out. Anything cheaper?

Yikes !! Capslock alert !

Havent asked a networking company which method they would use, have to admit that I am deeply suspicious of most because I always think they are just trying to push whichever product they can provide, rather than given an unbiased, neutral opinion. Also have to admit that I like to do as much personally as possible (installing projectors, IWB, cabling etc) rather than pay someone 4 times as much to do something that I could do myself. Having said that...do you have any recommended companies who will give a neutral opinion rather than pushing whatever they can do? (for a very limited budget of course)

Havent ever even looked at a LASER LINK Whats the cost like involved in that? Its cost that interests me more than anything, which is why I wanted to know what people would arrange if fibre was out of budget. If we can just steer away from the all conquering microsof...I mean fibre, what are the recommendations for something cheaper? anything? nothing? If we had a LASER LINK...could I sit in a chair and say "Fire the LAZOR !" in a Dr Evil voice?

If its not within the budget, what will your plan be? Would be interested to know what alternatives you come up with, if any. As budgets are our biggest constraint coming from an economically deprived area

Fibre is better for your digestive system than catv?

I guess the end result of the discussion is that every school is different, whats perfect for one isnt for another. Which I guess we probably all knew at the start To cover a distance of 10m with fibre...with our severely restricted budget would quite likely simply never happen. Maybe if we were a bit more flush it would be possible, but then if we were more flush I doubt I would be working here as I am no IT genius (goes without saying really..cause if I was, I sure wouldnt be working in a secondary school )

But 10m is sub-100m, I do admire you for being able to predict what will last 5-10 years though, I am never fully confident of anything lasting for 2 years, let alone 10. Hell , 10 years ago I was being told by adverts that "80mb hard drive !! All the space you will ever need !!"

Again..to be fair...your sarcasm assumes that the newest version of something is always better than the existing or previous versions. Which all of us on this forum...perhaps more than anyone else...know is not always the case.

To be fair though, future-proof is something which is pretty hard to guarantee regardless of whats chosen. Especially in an industry which develops as fast as ours does at times. Essentially imo , "future-proof" is a term thrown about by the marketing bods, much like "user-friendly" and "paperless". Who knows what developments will come along in the next year, something could arrive which makes fibre, catv and everything else obsolete. Fibre 2 or Catpro or something. *runs off to patent his Neural net*

Would this from those links not apply in the above case? "10Baset-T Ethernet used twisted pair wiring and RJ-45 connectors. The wiring is completely transformer isolated in network card and HUB end. 10Base-T network using unshielded twisted pair wiring does not cause any ground loop problems"

External CatV , laid in a duct, with polyethlene insulation and polyethylene sheathing wouldnt work for example?

I suppose that makes sense. So...assuming that budgets were tight, and wireless wasnt an option. Is there no alternative whatsoever to fibre?

I cant find anything on google about external catv specifically causing ground loops. Have you got some links regarding ground loops? Would like to know a bit more about them and ext catv