Design Install

High hopes: Cabling photos

Nov. 6, 2020

As the old song goes, "All tied up, no more love and I'd hate to see you waiting..." Could they have been singing about shoddy cable management?

Matt Vincent

It was the American pop rock band Panic! At The Disco whose 2018 song counseled:

"Mama said don't give up, it's a little complicated / All tied up, no more love and I'd hate to see you waiting / Had to have high, high hopes for a living..."

Was the band directing this wisdom toward deployers and maintainers of ICT structured cabling and connectivity? Were they referring to proper cable management?

The answer is almost certainly no. But isn't it pretty to think so, as you peruse the latest structured cabling nightmare photos as found posted to Reddit's various social media subcommunities devoted to the IT trade?

"IDF cabinets 40ft high. What could go wrong when your average IT has to operate a boom lift to do some hands on troubleshooting?" -- Reddit/Techsupportgore OP [orig. poster]: u/ThatCurlyHairedGuy20

"Flying spaghetti monster! There is no excuse for this mess, which is post switch upgrade." -- Reddit/Techsupportgore OP: u/rajittaa

"AV rack needs some work." -- Reddit/Cablegore OP: u/GarrettGraham

"Good luck tracking down that broken fiber." -- Reddit/Cablefail OP: u/Ayarbro

"I joined this company a year ago and coordinated the move into a new facility and was responsible of making sure the new facility didn’t turn into this." -- Reddit/Cablefail OP: u/Ayarbro

"Found this in one of the IDFs at a client site. 10ft patch cables for a 6-in patch." -- Reddit/Techsupportgore OP: u/lolklolk

Send your must-see cabling photos to [email protected].

About the Author

Matt Vincent | Senior Editor

Matt Vincent is a B2B technology journalist, editor and content producer with over 15 years of experience, specializing in the full range of media content production and management, as well as SEO and social media engagement best practices, for both Cabling Installation & Maintenance magazine and its website CablingInstall.com. He currently provides trade show, company, executive and field technology trend coverage for the ICT structured cabling, telecommunications networking, data center, IP physical security, and professional AV vertical market segments. Email: [email protected]