You need to hire professional contractors.

You need something done right, on time, the first time. Go shopping. You can find a professional or find someone who says he can do the work and “can give you a discount” before you start talking price. Should you hire him?

I would say, no. Don’t do it. You should vet him first. Find out what professional certifications he has. Learn what experience he has doing the type of work you need. Ask where he goes for retraining. This works to your benefit.

A professional would have pulled new cable. Professionals know better than to splice Ethernet cables.

The situation.

A client complained that their PoE webcam was unreliable. The original network cabler did not know why. The client asked me to take a look. What I found was an Ethernet cable that had been spliced.

An Ethernet cable contains 8 smaller wires. We see Ethernet cables connecting our VOIP phones and computers to wall jacks. Cabling is dirt cheap. I’ve seen this cable at $0.05 per foot. Running 100 feet of cable would cost $5.00. That is exactly what I did at this client site. I ran new cable and got the webcam up and running. All tests since then have been successful.

Why the original cabler thought he could splice these 8 thin wires…is beyond me. Professional cablers do not splice Ethernet cables. That is the complete opposite of what I learned back when I was launching my computer networking career.

Takeaway.

When you need something done right, hire a professional. He will deliver results that work. The professional certifications, experience and retraining work to your benefit. You may pay a little more. You will end up with a more reliable solution that works. Money well spent, in my opinion.