CAT5e price per drop?

scotausborn

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Mar 3, 2011
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We just got our first bid back for running dual CAT5e in conduit (per city code for plenum) to 63 locations. The price per drop comes out to $1,066. Is it just me, or is this outrageously high?

Thanks for any advice.
 

thendershot

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Feb 23, 2011
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plenum cabel is expensive.. are they supplying everything? we pay $165 per run inside a building and we supply the cable/jacks/face plates/wiremold
 

mydingo

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Jan 17, 2012
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That price is a bit over inflated, at least in South Florida. The going rate for non-plenum is about $125 per drop and about $195 for Plenum. The price includes termination. Plenum is about 3-4 times the cost of regular pvc wire. Patch panels can rage from $100 to over $500 in some case. Figure about $10-20 per connection on the switch as an average price. You could also get 50% discount on the second, third or fourth wire for drops consisting of more than a single wire. You should be looking at a cost of about $12000. Don't forget to add the cost of the conduit which can be cheap if gray plactic or expensive if metal. But again the company can charge what ever they want, you get to decide ifyou want to pay. Some states require that jobs costing over $1000 require a Low Voltage License.

You should get a quote from an electrician seperatly for the conduit and then a price fro the cable runs.
 

cable guy florida

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Jan 23, 2013
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CAll OrlanTEL, 321-277-0982, very honest with superior quality. It should cost about $230.00 per dual drop.
 

dbhosttexas

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Jan 15, 2013
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That seems awfully high. It's been a few years since I did cabling (okay 10) but when I was working that end of IT, we were charging $125.00 per drop plus materials, which of course would vary depending on the structure it was going in.

Mind you, if your installer has to get the materials for you, he is going to put an upcharge on that. It's his (or her) labor to spend the time sourcing the material while they could be doing installs and making money elsewhere. Not all installers work the same, we were never picky about the materials. If we gave the client a item list and they sourced it up properly, we would use it no problem. But we wouldn't warranty the materials. If we supplied we would upcharge for the material, but we would guarantee the job end to end.

In a way I kind of miss the physical network builds. They were fun projects, and always a challenge. Especially for certain clients. The client was more of a challenge than the technology...