I want to personally thank...

[kc8jwt]

I work as the IT guy in a K-12 school in the small town I live in. I went over to the Police station this morning to show them how to export video from our camera system if they needed to. The moment I walked in the door, the Internet went down. The remote IT tech said they were fixing the printers on the server and would need to do a reset and it would only take 5 minutes. An hour later, it came up because the tech decided that a reboot would suffice.

As I was setting in the dispatch room talking to the detective and the dispatcher, I was shown all of the cables under the desk and they said company after company would come in and put in new equipment and unplug the old equipment and leave the cables. It's a rats nest and I would probably cuss the previous techs that pulled that stunt. I always pull out any cables I'm not using anymore and store them or pitch them if I don't need them. Nothing aggravates me more than going behind someone to clean up their mess.

 

[mmckenna]

I work as the IT guy in a K-12 school in the small town I live in. I went over to the Police station this morning to show them how to export video from our camera system if they needed to. The moment I walked in the door, the Internet went down. The remote IT tech said they were fixing the printers on the server and would need to do a reset and it would only take 5 minutes. An hour later, it came up because the tech decided that a reboot would suffice.

Traditional IT guys and PSAP's don't always mix. I often get pulled in to work between our IT guys and the PSAP when something needs to be changed. It's always done very early in the morning (normally a low traffic time) and we make sure there is a back out. Knocking down their network for an hour would be totally unacceptable. Knocking it down for 5 minutes would take a week of planning, lots of permissions, having an adjacent PSAP standing by to take calls, and a really good backout plan.
An IT guy dropping a center for an hour like that would probably be a career ending stunt in most places.

Often the run of the mill IT guy will see no issues with knocking down a router in the middle of the day if it suits them. That doesn't fly in a PSAP.

Unfortunately, some PSAP's allow this to happen, and just buy whatever IT tells them. Not all IT guys are up to the task.

As I was setting in the dispatch room talking to the detective and the dispatcher, I was shown all of the cables under the desk and they said company after company would come in and put in new equipment and unplug the old equipment and leave the cables. It's a rats nest and I would probably cuss the previous techs that pulled that stunt. I always pull out any cables I'm not using anymore and store them or pitch them if I don't need them. Nothing aggravates me more than going behind someone to clean up their mess.

Two trains of thought on that.

One: Don't poke the sleeping bear. If everything is working and dispatchers are happy, don't go yanking on cables. It usually doesn't end well. And if you think it ended well, it just means that someone forgot to fully test everything and you are getting a late night call out.

Two, keep things neat and remove old hardware/cable. It's good in theory, and if done by a knowledgeable tech (NOT the IT guy), it's a good plan.
But there's risk (see #1 above) and you have to be 100% sure of what you are doing.
Also, dispatchers don't like IT guys crawling around under their desks while they are working. PSAP's tend to be 24x7 by design, so there is no "down time" to do that sort of work.
Also, a good PSAP won't let someone in to work on this sort of stuff unless they have background checks, and most people can't pass them. Usually PSAP managers don't want people hanging around who don't need to be in the center.


When we moved our PSAP, I had to wreck out the old one. Lots of old cable

 

[bharvey2]

The same PSAP that has this silly antenna setup also involved an electrical contractor that tried the "wireless outlet" trick on us. When we moved in, we found several outlets that didn't work. Since I'm not officially an electrician, I kicked it over to the right people.

They checked with their meter, no juice.
Take the outlet cover off.
Remove the outlet.
Yep, no wires going back to the panel.
Found a bunch like that.

Electrical contractor didn't do their job.
Inspector didn't do their job.

Whole place was little Charlie Foxtrots like that.

That is beyond sloppy and runs well into the deceitful category. It would be one thing if the rough electrical didn't get finished and the drywallers weren't paying attention. When the electricians came back, the screwup should be obvious. They "covered it up" in the literal sense.

Un!@#$%believeable but it brings me back to my first post regarding "outstupiding" each other.

 

[mmckenna]

Un!@#$%believeable but it brings me back to my first post regarding "outstupiding" each other.

Yeah, couldn't believe it. Back then, we seemed to be surrounded by sloppy contractors.

 

[WA8ZTZ]

Lift a ceiling tile in many a large commercial building and observe the mess.
What appears like miles of voice and data wiring (mostly unused but never removed)
run like a giant rat's nest with the occassional modem or switch or router dangling in mid-air
supported only by the wires (whoever designed the RJ45 modular connector did a hell of a good job).
Amazing that any of it even works.

Anyway, interesting thread...

 

[mastr]

Lift a ceiling tile in many a large commercial building and observe the mess.
What appears like miles of voice and data wiring (mostly unused but never removed)...

1st rule of telecommunications/data wiring - DO NOT remove anything unless you have verified same as unused, with no possible future need, no matter how unlikely.

 

[WA8ZTZ]

1st rule of telecommunications/data wiring - DO NOT remove anything unless you have verified same as unused, with no possible future need, no matter how unlikely.

Exactly, nobody takes the time, effort, or responsibility to verify, identify, or remove anything because the building owner doesn't want to pay for it... hence the mess.