On Saturday, July 4, 2015 at 10:44:02 AM UTC-5, wrote:
On Sat, 4 Jul 2015 04:56:29 -0700 (PDT), Uncle Monster
wrote:



On a construction or remodel job me or whomever had the electrical contract would run separate conduits for power and low voltage wiring. I'd spec 3/4 EMT for phone and network drops. The phone company wants a minimum 3/4" conduit and sometimes larger for a service entrance. Heck, before I became too ill to work anymore, the computer networks I installed were handling both data and VoIP phone service. One Cat6 Ethernet cable per desk was all that was needed for phone and computer. Of course I would often split one ethernet cable to get two network feeds or pull out an unused pair for an analog or single pair multi line phone system like a Nortel. Dammit I miss work, the more complicated the job, the more fun I had. ^_^

[8~{} Uncle Cable Monster

BICSI doesn't think much of running analog phones on ethernet cables
or splitting it out to two 10/100s.
The gigabit internet stopped all of that anyway because they use all 4
pair.

The NEC goes both ways on power and low voltage sharing cabinets and
raceways.
Generally it is prohibited except when both are part of the same
system. Cable jackets ARE "separation". It is the termination that is
the problem. Then you can have the question, is this a raceway (from
box to box) or a duct. (open at both ends)
It is specifically allowed if both cables are MC (or even just the LV
cable)
The NEC is fairly inconsistent around low voltage wiring because the
various CMPs don't seem to compare notes. I haven't really chewed on
the 2011 and 2014 enough to see if they fixed the in congruencies.
They are buried in the minutiae

Hell, we did whatever would make the inspectors happy. The network cable splitting was not done on new construction but when there was a service call or addition made long after the facility was built. It's been more expedient to pull out a pair on an existing cable rather than disrupt operations just to pull in one phone wire. Customers are interested in two things, will it work and what's the cost. Of course there's that third consideration, how much trouble will it be to do the job. ^_^

[8~{} Uncle Practical Monster