Tony's 2 bits - Cabling

When I present, work and teach, I’m always spouting off some advice, observation or ranting about the obvious shortcuts I encounter.

After a while, I coined the term “My 2 bits” or “Tonys 2 bits” which sounds a bit better than “old guy ranting”…

In this video, I quickly cover one of my pet peeves, damaged cables. The actual damage can range from broken RJ45 tabs, torn cladding, and ever-popular 2 cables connected and wrapped up with electrical tape.

Layer 1 is obviously the foundation of your network performance. Why would you take, or allow someone to take a shortcut that would cause performance issues or an outage? Its pretty well that simple.

I will agree that there are scenarios where you “have to get things going” so you build a cable or use that marginal cable that was laying around, because 'it works'. But PLEASE!!!!! Go back and replace it, don’t just say “I’ll come back..“.

The last point is, if the RJ45 is damaged and you have a crimper, experience, and cable test tool, sure replace the end, but if you are not sure as to what you’re doing, you only have 2 alternatives:

- Toss the cable

- Practice and have someone who knows review and test your cable. Trust me its not as easy as you would think especially if you run into shielded cabling and outdoor cabling with gel in it.

Let me know if enjoyed the video, and I will make more. Trust me I’ve got enough “2 bits” to easily gill a Gigabit. LOL.. See what I did there.. never mind..

Tony Fortunato

www.thetechfirm.com