I have customers who take a lot of notice of me. I have others that don’t. I am not saying that I am always right but there are times when I most definitely am.
One of our biggest customers built themselves a new office block in the last couple of years and at my insistence had the foresight to include structured cabling at the design stage. This has proven to be a really sensible specification as a number of staff have already moved around internally and the ease with which you can “move” their phone extension has really paid dividends. Unfortunately they didn’t listen to me when I suggested that they specify twice the number of network points than they though they needed with the result that we find ourselves running out of capacity. Fortunately a telephone engineer once pointed me at a “Coolport“. This clever little device allows you to run two (or sometimes more) devices over one length of Cat5.
Easily mounted onto a desk or wall, Coolports are supplied in pairs, with one connected to a wall outlet and the other to a patch panel. Coolports therefore, provide an instant method for adding more devices to a single cable port – ideal in emergency situations where not enough network outlets are available, or when the cost or disruption caused by installing additional cabling is prohibitive.
Four different Coolport types are available:
Purple 2 x 10/100Base T (Ethernet)
Red 1 x 10/100Base T + 1Pr Voice (Analogue)
Blue 1 x10/100Base T + 2 x 1Pr Voice (Analogue/Digital)
Amber 3 x 1Pr Voice (Digital)