[lug] Hilarious net cable market

[Chris Riddoch]

"D. Stimits" <stimits at idcomm.com> writes:

> I just discovered that if one wants to buy network cable for cat 5e,
> that most of the retail stores are charging at least a 500%
> markup.

Hmmm. Where are you looking?

> Whereas Saunders sells it for $0.25/foot, and a few others around
> $0.20/foot, that a regular electrical supply shop (retail, but sells
> to contractors) is selling the same thing for less than $0.06/foot.

And the Home Depot in Westminster (where I went for supplies when I
was wiring my girlfriend's mom's house) was selling it for about
$.10/foot.

> The only problem is they sell 1000 feet minimum (the size of a box).

The box we got was 500 feet, and cost about $45.

> This isn't so bad when you realize that to wire many houses you
> would want at least 150 feet, and it costs the same to buy that much
> at the retail stores as it does to buy 1000 feet at the electrical
> supply shop.

Hmm. I don't know how many drops you're making, but I would seriously
recommend giving yourself a little more slack than 150 feet.  We had
to go from basement to attic through the chase, and then drop down
into walls on the second floor to get to the bedrooms.  One line per
bedroom, one in the living room, one in the basement, times one cable
for ethernet and another for phone (okay, so maybe we were being a
little excessive, but I hope someone in the future will be thankful
that we used cat5e for the phone line, when they want to use the cable
for more ethernet when we're all using VoIP)... trust me, it all adds
up quickly. We strung a little under 400 feet of cable.

Of course, I have no idea what your setup is. YMMV.

> Related hardware like connectors is about 1/3 of the price of the
> lower priced retail shops, I am amazed at how much profit is being
> made on network cables and related supplies like connectors and face
> plates.

I suspect Home Depot makes most of their money on the smaller
bits. Connectors, wall plates, old-wall boxes, patch panels,
wall-mount electrical boxes, cable... once we got everything we
needed, as cheaply as we could find, it ran us just past $300. I
suspect it could be done cheaper, if you already have a relatively
complete selection of hardware tools.  I'm quite certain that paying
someone else to do it for us would cost multiple times what it cost us
in materials.

> If I pick up a 1000 foot roll, and use a couple hundred feet of it
> (solid core fastcat 5e), would anyone here be interested in buying
> the remainder at cost? Probably in a week or so.

We've still got a bunch, but I'm sure someone will want some. Try
shopping around a bit more. I bet you can find decent prices.

-- 
Chris Riddoch       | epistemological
socket at peakpeak.com | humility