Mailing List Archive

Keep in mind new construction versus having to get around drywall.

2" is beyond excessive. We use 1.25" duct for our 288ct *PLUS* up to 6
flat drop cables.

On Thu, Nov 30, 2023 at 7:45?PM Brandon Martin <lists.nanog@monmotha.net>
wrote:

> On 11/28/23 10:42, Mike Hammett wrote:
> > Why not just use SCH40 PVC sticks? Everywhere stocks that in copious
> levels.
>
> Ever tried to snake one of those through a wall?
>
> They're great for just pushing through a wall penetration to something
> directly adjacent on the inside, though. At that point you might as
> well for for 2", honestly.
>
> --
> Brandon Martin
>

On 11/30/23 20:55, owen@Delong.com wrote:
> For the most part out here, if it’s going behind sheetrock,
> contractors/electricians just run Romex or whatever in bare stud holes
> without any form of conduit.

The nice thing about ENT (or other corrugated plastic conduit) from a
residential electrician's point of view is that it basically installs
like Romex.

--
Brandon Martin

On 12/1/23 05:18, Josh Luthman wrote:
> Keep in mind new construction versus having to get around drywall.

Rigid conduit is great if you can get it. If you can, by all means go
for it!

However, if the outside utility aggregation point is not pretty much on
the other side of the wall from the inside media aggregation point,
rigid conduit can be a pain even in new construction.

Outside of a few select areas (Chicago, parts of NYC) where it's
required even in stick-built residential construction for electrical
wires (and then it's usually metal, not plastic), most residential
electricians almost never use it aside from maybe a short run between
the meter base and panel - generally right on the other side of the wall
from each other.

If the path is complicated, you end up having to piece together fittings
to make the path up and keep proper sweep, and of course you can't
feasibly get it horizontally into stud framed walls at all unless you
can poke it in from the edge which involves an otherwise unnecessary
hole in the corner board or you resort to cutting it into 16" pieces and
putting it back together with couplers. You can surface mount it to the
bottom of floor joists, for example, but then you can't drywall that
ceiling without building out a chase.

Corrugated plastic conduit like ENT or comm duct can be pulled in
essentially like NM cable (Romex). It's easy, fast, and it's a process
essentially all resi electricians are familiar and comfortable with.

I'm thinking mostly SFU construction here, but a lot of the same
concerns apply to MDUs as well. The 4-over style wood framed buildings
that have become popular are generally wired in NM and SE cable.
There's often no good path for a rigid conduit with proper sweep to
every unit. Flexible/corrugated duct is just a lot more, well, flexible.

> 2" is beyond excessive.  We use 1.25" duct for our 288ct *PLUS* up to 6
> flat drop cables.

I agree in principle, but it allows for plenty of room for multiple
utilities to get in without worrying about tearing up the others'
cables. If it's just poking through a wall, you're talking, what 8" of
pipe?

--
Brandon Martin
Mothic Technologies
317-565-1357 x7000

On 12/2/23 11:59, Brandon Martin wrote:
> On 12/1/23 05:18, Josh Luthman wrote:
>> Keep in mind new construction versus having to get around drywall.
>
> Rigid conduit is great if you can get it.  If you can, by all means go
> for it!

Rigid conduit is essentially galvanized plumbing pipe. Very rare in new
construction other than for overhead electrical service entrance. It's
extremely heavy and difficult to work with. As its name suggests, it's
quite rigid. Not easily bent or cut and needs to be threaded.

Innerduct or ENT is far less expensive and orders of magnitude easier to
deal with for low voltage applications.

--
Jay Hennigan - jay@west.net
Network Engineering - CCIE #7880
503 897-8550 - WB6RDV

On 12/2/23 15:09, Jay Hennigan wrote:
> Rigid conduit is essentially galvanized plumbing pipe. Very rare in new
> construction other than for overhead electrical service entrance. It's
> extremely heavy and difficult to work with. As its name suggests, it's
> quite rigid. Not easily bent or cut and needs to be threaded.

I didn't mean strictly RMC but any form of generally rigid conduit to
include rigid PVC.

You're correct that RMC is rarely used for anything other than service
masts at least as far as I've seen. The only other time I see it used
is classified (explosive) environments.

> Innerduct or ENT is far less expensive and orders of magnitude easier to
> deal with for low voltage applications.

That's pretty much my point. Even EMT (which can be bent with a bender
or "hicky" but is otherwise rigid) and PVC are a pain to work with in
comparison to something that's basically flexible tubing.

I should have known better, network engineers don't work on the physical
infrastructure very much anymore - memories of sitting on concrete floors
crimping cable ends in to many IXPs :-)

If you never seen or installed ENT Electrical Nonmetallic Tubing
Conduit, also known as "smurf tube" -- here is a new YouTube video of
someone installing a smurf tube between an external DEMARC and internal
distribution point for his fiber connection.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUCe9lAWY4U


In the U.S. - ENT is UL listed as electrical conduit and can be used in
most residential (and some commercial) runs. Commonly used for
low-voltage and fiber runs in the US. I'm not an expert on other
countries wiring codes.

ENT is not the same as in-rack wiring management products (i.e. the
split-wall plastic wire holders).

Thanks Sean!

Looks like over priced residential inner duct to me. Sheet rock
accomplishes pretty much the same thing. I want reliable home Internet too,
but it’s not a CO. I’d install a PVC sleeve on the OSP to ISP transition.
The risk of outage isn’t going to materially move one way or the other as
far as I can tell.

YMMV,

-M<


On Tue, Dec 5, 2023 at 21:28 Sean Donelan <sean@donelan.com> wrote:

>
> I should have known better, network engineers don't work on the physical
> infrastructure very much anymore - memories of sitting on concrete floors
> crimping cable ends in to many IXPs :-)
>
> If you never seen or installed ENT Electrical Nonmetallic Tubing
> Conduit, also known as "smurf tube" -- here is a new YouTube video of
> someone installing a smurf tube between an external DEMARC and internal
> distribution point for his fiber connection.
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUCe9lAWY4U
>
>
> In the U.S. - ENT is UL listed as electrical conduit and can be used in
> most residential (and some commercial) runs. Commonly used for
> low-voltage and fiber runs in the US. I'm not an expert on other
> countries wiring codes.
>
> ENT is not the same as in-rack wiring management products (i.e. the
> split-wall plastic wire holders).
>

You've misunderstood the goal.

The intent is not to protect the fiber, but to make it easier for the
field tech installing new service in a neat way through finished
construction and concealled raceways, without cutting sheetrock or
stapling exposed cabling across walls.

Trying to prevent the next "bad fiber install" set of pictures.

U.S. NEC does not require any mechanical protection for fiber cables. You
can run "bare" fiber cables through most residential spaces (with a few
exceptions for jacket material, i.e. direct burial cable not allowed
inside habital spaces). Building codes may vary in other countries.

On the other hand, do some searches for "bad fiber install" for many
examples of fiber installers stapling fiber around the outside of houses
or zip-tied to gas pipes.



On Tue, 5 Dec 2023, Martin Hannigan wrote:
> Looks like over priced residential inner duct to me. Sheet rock accomplishes
> pretty much the same thing. I want reliable home Internet too, but it’s not
> a CO. I’d install a PVC sleeve on the OSP to ISP transition. The risk of
> outage isn’t going to materially move one way or the other as far as I can
> tell. 

On Wed, Dec 6, 2023 at 3:45?AM Sean Donelan <sean@donelan.com> wrote:

> U.S. NEC does not require any mechanical protection for fiber cables. You
> can run "bare" fiber cables through most residential spaces (with a few
> exceptions for jacket material, i.e. direct burial cable not allowed
> inside habital spaces).

I also recall the requirement for "plenum rated cable"
in some cases (but not typically in residential spaces
as the ceilings are not typically part of the expect air
circulation system, although, as with all else, your
residence will vary).

I think an important point for pre-wire and residential real estate
developers to consider is also the conflicting needs of keeping things
"neat and tidy" and last mile CPE location vs wifi coverage.

Your typical new build residential construction will have something like
this in it for telecom purposes:

https://imgur.com/RDMn6px

Or like this:

https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2F65wgbfel14m91.jpg

And then people install their ISP CPE in it and an 802.11ac (or ax) 2x2 or
3x3 router, often this is the same device, and wonder why their performance
is bad because the wifi AP happens to be **inside a box with a metal door
on it**.

Or the ISP tech knows better and tells people that their wifi coverage will
be terrible with the CPE inside of the box, so some sort of hack-job is
necessary to get power and ethernet to the location where the dual-band AP
can be located for optimal whole-home coverage.

Some of these now are all plastic and don't block as much 5 GHz signal, so
it's not quite as bad...





On Tue, Dec 5, 2023 at 7:46?PM Sean Donelan <sean@donelan.com> wrote:

>
> You've misunderstood the goal.
>
> The intent is not to protect the fiber, but to make it easier for the
> field tech installing new service in a neat way through finished
> construction and concealled raceways, without cutting sheetrock or
> stapling exposed cabling across walls.
>
> Trying to prevent the next "bad fiber install" set of pictures.
>
> U.S. NEC does not require any mechanical protection for fiber cables. You
> can run "bare" fiber cables through most residential spaces (with a few
> exceptions for jacket material, i.e. direct burial cable not allowed
> inside habital spaces). Building codes may vary in other countries.
>
> On the other hand, do some searches for "bad fiber install" for many
> examples of fiber installers stapling fiber around the outside of houses
> or zip-tied to gas pipes.
>
>
>
> On Tue, 5 Dec 2023, Martin Hannigan wrote:
> > Looks like over priced residential inner duct to me. Sheet rock
> accomplishes
> > pretty much the same thing. I want reliable home Internet too, but it’s
> not
> > a CO. I’d install a PVC sleeve on the OSP to ISP transition. The risk of
> > outage isn’t going to materially move one way or the other as far as I
> can
> > tell.
>

On 12/6/23 23:22, Eric Kuhnke wrote:
> I think an important point for pre-wire and residential real estate
> developers to consider is also the conflicting needs of keeping things
> "neat and tidy" and last mile CPE location vs wifi coverage.

If you assume that the appropriate place for a wifi access point is
colocated with the NID/ONT/CPE, you're doing it wrong.

--
Jay Hennigan - jay@west.net
Network Engineering - CCIE #7880
503 897-8550 - WB6RDV

On Wed, 6 Dec 2023, Eric Kuhnke wrote:
> I think an important point for pre-wire and residential real estate
> developers to consider is also the conflicting needs of keeping things "neat
> and tidy" and last mile CPE location vs wifi coverage.

The answer is always 5G - 5G - 5G.

A 5G solution means the builder doesn't need to spend money on
structured cabling in new construction, no residential media wall
cabinet, no CAT/RG wiring in the walls, no ugly boxes on your walls.

Just put a 5G gateway somewhere in the house and few WiFi mesh devices
in other places. "It's so much better" - says design consultant.

If anyone assumes that residential real estate general contractors and low
voltage/wiring subcontractors know or care about wifi signal or not putting
RF units inside metal boxes - that would be a bad assumption to make.


On Thu, Dec 7, 2023 at 10:18?PM Jay Hennigan <jay@west.net> wrote:

> On 12/6/23 23:22, Eric Kuhnke wrote:
> > I think an important point for pre-wire and residential real estate
> > developers to consider is also the conflicting needs of keeping things
> > "neat and tidy" and last mile CPE location vs wifi coverage.
>
> If you assume that the appropriate place for a wifi access point is
> colocated with the NID/ONT/CPE, you're doing it wrong.
>
> --
> Jay Hennigan - jay@west.net
> Network Engineering - CCIE #7880
> 503 897-8550 - WB6RDV
>
>

We just built a new house in 2021. The builder ran 2" schedule 40 from the
side of the house out to the distribution point in front of my neighbor's
house. I didn't specify 2" - that's what the builder ran. A portion of
that run must have existed before construction because no one had to tear
up my neighbor's yard to get to the distro box.

Once I convinced Verizon that Fios was indeed available in this
neighborhood (separate matter entirely), it was an easy matter for the tech
to pull the drop cable through the empty conduit, drill a hole a few feet
above the foundation and land the cable in the basement.

I didn't run any surface tube or conduit in the basement, but there was
enough room for the install tech to run the cable without too much of a
fight.

Thank you
jms

On Fri, Dec 8, 2023, 2:06?PM Eric Kuhnke <eric.kuhnke@gmail.com> wrote:

> If anyone assumes that residential real estate general contractors and low
> voltage/wiring subcontractors know or care about wifi signal or not putting
> RF units inside metal boxes - that would be a bad assumption to make.
>
>
> On Thu, Dec 7, 2023 at 10:18?PM Jay Hennigan <jay@west.net> wrote:
>
>> On 12/6/23 23:22, Eric Kuhnke wrote:
>> > I think an important point for pre-wire and residential real estate
>> > developers to consider is also the conflicting needs of keeping things
>> > "neat and tidy" and last mile CPE location vs wifi coverage.
>>
>> If you assume that the appropriate place for a wifi access point is
>> colocated with the NID/ONT/CPE, you're doing it wrong.
>>
>> --
>> Jay Hennigan - jay@west.net
>> Network Engineering - CCIE #7880
>> 503 897-8550 - WB6RDV
>>
>>