Discussion Brand new condo building's moronic Ethernet cabling

[JulianCH]

I have exactly the same problem described in this post . Fiber optic coming to a distributor inside the wall in the lobby and from there cables inside the walls connected to terminals in different rooms. The sockets and cables labelled cat 6, everything looked good but my router is only getting 100Mb.

[SOLVED] - Speeds capped at 100mbps despite using cat5e/cat6 cables

Hi, I’m at the point of absolute despair with this issue. Basically to cut a long story short I recently upgraded my internet from 50mbps to 150mbps on my fttp connection. Ever since it went live I haven’t been able to get 150mbps, with it capping at around 94mbps. After a phone call to BT I...

forums.tomshardware.com

This post inspired me to look at the wiring and... see for yourselves Does that make any sense?! I hope there's a special hell fort the geniuses who did this. Keep in mind that this is a modern building only 6-7 years old.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/gYnH4pKoiFNRsWF66

 

[Ralston18]

Use imgur to post your image(s).

 

[SamirD]

Can't see the images. I want to see the carnage! (And compare it to what the idiots wired at my parents place in 1995--my bets are that they're the same.)

 

[JulianCH]

Use imgur to post your image(s).

I tried but it won't let me "Something went wrong, contact administrators"

 

[JulianCH]

Can't see the images. I want to see the carnage! (And compare it to what the idiots wired at my parents place in 1995--my bets are that they're the same.)

Try now, I changed the link!

 

[bill001g]

You will never get more than 100mbps with it connected that way. gigabit needs all 4 pair of wires. Someone split the pairs to get 2 jacks. Not sure why it give you 2 jacks at 100mbps rather than 1 at gbit. This was done years ago when most equipment did not run faster than 100mbps.

You are going to have to rewire the jack...likely on both ends. It is just a matter of matching the wire colors to the pins on the jack.

I guess the good news is if you really want 2 active jacks it appears the wire is run via conduit you should be able to run another cable.

 

[JulianCH]

You will never get more than 100mbps with it connected that way. gigabit needs all 4 pair of wires. Someone split the pairs to get 2 jacks. Not sure why it give you 2 jacks at 100mbps rather than 1 at gbit. This was done years ago when most equipment did not run faster than 100mbps.
You are going to have to rewire the jack...likely on both ends. It is just a matter of matching the wire colors to the pins on the jack.
I guess the good news is if you really want 2 active jacks it appears the wire is run via conduit you should be able to run another cable.

It's actually worse than it appears, the second jack doesn't work at all, in any of the rooms. So they did all this for nothing. I read somewhere that the green and orange pairs are the ones carrying the 100Mbps signal, so you can't connect the remaining colors in their normal slots on the second jack and expect them to work...

It's the more surprising because the condo building is brand new and had fiber optic installed from the very beginning, so Gb speeds have always been possible. Some providers even offer 10Gbps at reasonable prices currently. Instead of 2 ethernet cables I would ideally like to have 1 ethernet cable wired correctly and 1 fiber optic alonside it. With fiber optic I can have only one box instead of two and maximum coverage for the wifi.

 

[Krotow]

You will never get more than 100mbps with it connected that way. gigabit needs all 4 pair of wires. Someone split the pairs to get 2 jacks. Not sure why it give you 2 jacks at 100mbps rather than 1 at gbit. This was done years ago when most equipment did not run faster than 100mbps.

You are going to have to rewire the jack...likely on both ends. It is just a matter of matching the wire colors to the pins on the jack.

Yes. Only 100 Mbit in this way. Maybe he have 100 Mbit only switch hidden in wall somewhere in middle too.

Seems OP should rewire his building. Or hire someone who is known about being able to do network rewiring correctly.

 

[gggplaya]

The problem is, most of this work is completed by electricians, not IT professionals. Electricians are generally only trained on how to terminate and crimp ethernet. Most don't take the time to learn anything about it. Clearly, they didn't know what they were doing.

I would terminate this into a single jack to see if you can get gigabit speed. The problem is, they might have done this at the patch panel on the other side of the wire. I would talk to the HOA, or building owner to show them how it was screwed up and to ask if you can at least fix yours.

 

[SamirD]

Try now, I changed the link!

Yep, that will do it! Yours beats mine though so they have learned to leave only 1" versus 3" like I have.

 

[SamirD]

You will never get more than 100mbps with it connected that way. gigabit needs all 4 pair of wires. Someone split the pairs to get 2 jacks. Not sure why it give you 2 jacks at 100mbps rather than 1 at gbit. This was done years ago when most equipment did not run faster than 100mbps.

I can't believe I missed this too--yeah that was jank even back in the day.

 

[SamirD]

It's the more surprising because the condo building is brand new...

It will amazes me that around the world and 25 years later, contractors STILL cannot terminate ethernet correctly--something that almost any homeowner can so themselves using tools from the local hardware store. I don't see why these clowns get to call themselves professionals and charge money for their mistakes...

I ran into the same issue at our new apartment building that was wired for both cable and fibre 1gb--they used a telephone punch down block. I told the site supervisor and he took it all the way back to the contractors who stated that's what was spec'd so they got what they spec'd and paid for. I ordered a new punch down block and re-terminated the lines as the other end was properly terminated--we were the only unit in the building with wired ethernet in each room.

 

[SamirD]

The problem is, most of this work is completed by electricians, not IT professionals. Electricians are generally only trained on how to terminate and crimp ethernet. Most don't take the time to learn anything about it. Clearly, they didn't know what they were doing.

I would terminate this into a single jack to see if you can get gigabit speed. The problem is, they might have done this at the patch panel on the other side of the wire. I would talk to the HOA, or building owner to show them how it was screwed up and to ask if you can at least fix yours.

That's definitely the issue here in the US. Not only that, it's because electricians think 'it's just like phone wiring' so they do the same thing as phone wiring, but with more wires. Ideally, anyone having to deal with people like this should just let them run the wire and leave it on the boxes to terminate themselves. And have them run extra wires because I'm sure they'll mess that up too (staples, cuts, etc).

You bring up a very good point about bringing this up with the HOA and contractor. Because if the building contract specified gigabit and not this crap, then the contractor has an obligation to correct all the wiring mistakes on their dime. It might take some legal actions to get this enforced, but the first step is to find out if there was a breech of contract.

 

[JulianCH]

Btw the landlord had a technician contact me and he believes that the second line/jack was meant for the phone. And that when they first installed it they probably didn't think that speeds above 100Mbps were possible. I'm like they didn't install them in the dark ages, only 5 years ago and the building had fiber already!

 

[SamirD]

Btw the landlord had a technician contact me and he believes that the second line/jack was meant for the phone. And that when they first installed it they probably didn't think that speeds above 100Mbps were possible. I'm like they didn't install them in the dark ages, only 5 years ago and the building had fiber already!

I would ask to see the exact specs in the original construction agreement. Because it's a condo and you paid for this mess, if it's not right, it would be very easy to get the entire condo association to get mad and take legal action for being cheated out of what they were supposed to get.

On the other hand, if the specs read the equivalent of this mess, then sigh and be thankful you can fix it yourself.

 

[gggplaya]

Most likely the building's original builder cut a corner, they probably invested and built the building with the idea of selling all the condos and turning a profit. They saw an opportunity to use half as many ethernet wires and saved a few thousand dollars in extra ethernet spools. I would look hard at the original construction contract if someone can dig it up, and see how it specified running data lines.

Come to think of it. I contracted a local electrical supplier to run power and data to 2 locations on our companies property. Looking at the contract, it literally just says "data lines" with a dollar amount next to it. The contract didn't specify the ethernet rating or speed or anything. Luckily the contractor we used has done plenty of business with us in the past, so they wouldn't screw us over and I was heavily overseeing the project myself. But there was opportunity for them to cheap out on us.

 

[SamirD]

I don't think most builders still understand what ethernet cabling really is. They know the wire, but they have no clue how to terminate it. And what really irks me is that nothing has changed from 1995, which was the year my parents built their house and we spec'd out running 2x ethernet to each room (4x in some). They had no clue how to terminate it, and if I would have just done it myself we wouldn't have any of the issues we have. For the same thing to happen today is beyond unforgivable.

A single job contract will be lucky if it even has details beyond what you described. But a construction project that will be bid out to many sub-contractors will have every detail spelled out as the contractor put in a bid and will need to know exactly how much stuff costs. If their subs bid something and then half-ass the job, it's on the contractor to fix it, but generally they like to save as much money as possible so half-assing is incentivized if the owner can't catch it in a timely manner.