What's the going rate to terminate cat6?

I remodeled my house and ran cat6 everywhere and have them going to a network closet.

I'm waiting on some other quotes, but the first guy back to me said $85/line.

No idea.
But why do you need Cat6 everywhere?

To just crimp the RJ45 end on?

It's not hard.. The tool isn't expensive, and neither are the ends.

$85 an hour is absolutely absurd.

Learn a skill. DIY! Buy the tool, the connectors, and the tone tool that will help you test the lines and also find each line and identify them. A label maker might be useful if you have a bunch of them.

$85 a line?????? Hell, if you're near me I'll teach you to do it for 2 moderately priced domestic beers.

Security cameras, tvs, backbone for wifi, desktop computer

I'm going to punch down some keystone jacks this weekend and see how it goes.

What everyone else said, I ran about 600' of Cat 6 in my house, take 2 days ish but the terminating aspect is very easy. I did 41 end terminations after work one evening. Its truly not hard at all.

JTA1029 said:

---

$85 an hour is absolutely absurd.

---

The quote in the OP was WAY more than that, how many lines could you do in an hour?

Maybe things have changes but i was paying 75 a drop including running the cable and supplying all materials. For termination and certification with traceable report for all cable parameters like wiremap, loss, next etc 85 is probably a reasonable rate since the test equipment costs thousands but is done only in datacenters and large it installations.
Cat 6 is trivial 6e less so. The $20 quick cable continuity tester is probably worth buying.

ForeverAg said:

---

What everyone else said, I ran about 600' of Cat 6 in my house, take 2 days ish but the terminating aspect is very easy. I did 41 end terminations after work one evening. Its truly not hard at all.

---

I looked at this years ago and opted for the powerline Ethernet. It seemed like a lot of attic time, coupled with fishing the cable down walls with special equipment. Was it a one story house?

While powerline has been great, it hasn't gotten the speeds I'm paying for, so I'm looking at mesh but would prefer hardwire.

AtlAg05 said:

---

ForeverAg said:

---

What everyone else said, I ran about 600' of Cat 6 in my house, take 2 days ish but the terminating aspect is very easy. I did 41 end terminations after work one evening. Its truly not hard at all.

---

I looked at this years ago and opted for the powerline Ethernet. It seemed like a lot of attic time, coupled with fishing the cable down walls with special equipment. Was it a one story house?

While powerline has been great, it hasn't gotten the speeds I'm paying for, so I'm looking at mesh but would prefer hardwire.

---

It's a 1.5 story. It's a 80% completed attic. I hard wired everything I can including adding extra in rooms. I added cat6 for outdoor cameras for a future install. I put an access point in my detached garage. I mean I really went overboard but I have 0 regrets.

ntxVol said:

---

JTA1029 said:

---

$85 an hour is absolutely absurd.

---

The quote in the OP was WAY more than that, how many lines could you do in an hour?

---

Oh crap. Yeah. I could probably terminate 50 in an hour with the ez pass through ends and the crimpers that cut off the excess.

What everyone else said. If you've run wire through the walls you've already done the hardest part. Take the victory lap yourself.

Did my first keystone jacks last night. It took less than 4 minutes and that includes going upstairs to the network closet and looking for the wire I needed.

I should be able to knock all the lines tomorrow after work.

Waltrip88 said:

---

Did my first keystone jacks last night. It took less than 4 minutes and that includes going upstairs to the network closet and looking for the wire I needed.

I should be able to knock all the lines tomorrow after work.

---

My first official task of my first official tech job was sitting in a store room and terminating cables for TXDOT. That part was WAY better than running them (which I also had to do).

If you have never done it before, terminating cat 6 is a little more precise than terminating cat 5. Cat 6 you have to keep the twists going as close to the stab pins as possible. If you don't then it just turns into cat 5 and you'll only get 100MB on the connection. Just something to consider.

agchino said:

---

If you have never done it before, terminating cat 6 is a little more precise than terminating cat 5. Cat 6 you have to keep the twists going as close to the stab pins as possible. If you don't then it just turns into cat 5 and you'll only get 100MB on the connection. Just something to consider.

---

It's pretty unlikely that a couple extra mm of untwisted wire is going to drop it 2 orders of magnitude... Cat6 supports 10GBe up to 150 feet or so. Even Cat5e supports gigabit in reasonable lengths.

It's really not that sensitive.

agchino said:

---

If you have never done it before, terminating cat 6 is a little more precise than terminating cat 5. Cat 6 you have to keep the twists going as close to the stab pins as possible. If you don't then it just turns into cat 5 and you'll only get 100MB on the connection. Just something to consider.

---

This post is factually inaccurate. But yes, getting the twists as close to the connection point is a best practice.

Ok, I'll state it another way. I've done the cat 5 kits and the cat 6 kits, and using the little guide loops and doing the twists on the cat 6 kit was a lot tougher with my fat fingers.

I've also had the cat 6 ones that I made plug in and only show 100 MB link after I made them. I am an amateur. Your mileage may vary.

Its generally a bad connection between the wire and the pin on some of the pairs. I did it way more often with cat5e because the first couple hundred patch cables I made were cat5e.

I greatly prefer punch down keystones for in wall cable rather than RJ45 connectors. They're so much easier to do correctly, IMO. You can even get patch panels that accept keystone terminations and you can get keystones for almost any kind of connector. That way you can have a place for coax or fiber or whatever to come into the panel.

This x10000
Wites in walls terminate on jacks and connect to devices with patch cables, and these days patch cables are likely cheaper than bulk cables and parts.
The wad of wires with rj45 plugged in a switch is just yuck.
If i find it in a new install for something i have authority over i use a shear to cut off all the plugs and tell contractor do correctly this time.

Get you a 40 dollar tester at Home Depot to verify your connections and two patch cables and DIY. 85/line is robbery