OK so you are doing your cabling job and you have run your cable and pulled it through the wall and they are hanging there ready to be terminated....what color do you use on the jacks?

~Chris

There are so many colors to chose from.. Pick a one.

The company I work for now likes to use Red for data and voice color that matches the face place. I'm not fond of red, except for special circuits, servers, T1, or something like that.

I've seen many installs use blue for data. And others use multiple colors for mutiple jacks..IE First data blue, second data red.

Last company used voice and data that matched the faceplace (usually white or ivory), and then we would mark the function (V for voice, D for Data) with a labler, or I spell put voice, data if they don't look like they can remember what V & D stand for.

Color coding the whole system sometimes makes sense.. Use blue cable, jacks and cords so that the user knows to plug in blue cord to blue jack.. That way you don't get a fax line pluged into you data jack.
There are some jacks that you can keep white, and use a colored insert tab.

Sometimes the customer wallpapers over the jack and faceplate anyway, covering the number in the proccess (so make a map).

So do you want the jacks to stand out, or blend in?

If in doubt, I ask the person thats paying for the install, the person pluging everything in, or the one color coordinating the office.

I always try to match the faceplate to the existing, or to what the electrician is using. White seems to be more common now days.

I hate it when I walk into a place where a cabling vendor used a color faceplate that didn't match the electrical. The telcos are very notorious for this, but others are as well. It seems like a bit of a lack of pride in workmanship. Most offices use either white or ivory, so I stock both on my van. This allows me to match whatever is already in place. It looks pretty bad to have a white telecom faceplate right next to an ivory electrical faceplate, just because the vendor refuses to stock anything other than white. If it were to come to something other than white or ivory, I would leave it up to the customer whether they wanted me to get the correct colors.

One other thing I noticed that bugs me. Maybe I've mentioned this before: Home Depot stocks Leviton telecom parts. They also sell Leviton electrical parts. In electrical, they sell mostly white and IVORY faceplates, outlets, switches, etc. In telecom, they USED to stock white, ivory, and some almond. Around here, every store I've gone into now ONLY stocks white and ALMOND!! What is up with that? That doesn't match the ivory! Who uses almond?? I very rarely see almond switches and outlets. If they were going to choose 2 colors so they didn't have to stock more than 2, why oh why go with almond???? But I'm not bothered by this.

------------------

| Signal Communication Systems - Fresno, CA |

| Telephone Systems, Voicemail Syste... & Data Cabling - Central Valley, CA

I've heard electricians complaining that the Leviton ivory plates from Home Despot don't match the Leviton ivory from other sources. Didn't pay much attention, it never occured to me that they may be almond. I just assumed that Leviton was dumping their off-color rejects on the ignorant DIY's.

I think you may be right about the almond though. So now it looks like Leviton is dumping their unpopular stock on the ignorant DIY's with HD paying pennies for it.

-Hal

re: color of jacks

in our world:

without a specific directive from the client
and not having to match what is already there (a new install)

data = black,

voice/phone = the color of the faceplate which would be white or ivory

voice/other = modem/fax is the other color
white or ivory the one not used on the phone jack

we do have one client who has a nationwide standard where all data/voice jacks are the same color, since we do label everything with a label maker it doesn't cause problems but still very weird. it does make for great service calls as they keep plugging pc patch cords into the voice jacks.

Who reads labels anyway? Of course for that matter, who pays attention to the color of the jack, or to the fact that one is bigger than the other. How many calls have you gotten where the customer either said that the plug was too big to fit in the jack, or too small?

i don't ever remember a customer commenting about the size of the plug versus the jack.
usually someone at their tech support department is assisting them over the phone,
usually addressing why the pc won't connect to the network. of course they get frustrated with their fellow employee and then one of the last ditch efforts to correct the situation is the it person asking the employee to plug it in "somewhere else". this works great in locations that have 4 jacks per employee
2v/2d. of course the person IT has never been to one of the regular offices and has no clue that 2 are labeled with a d and a number and 2 have a v and a number.

it is just a great source of service calls.

when it's the simple usual one voice/one data and i take the call, there is never a relocation of patch cords or line cords etc.
as part of the trouble shooting process before a tech is dispatched.

We try to stay consistant with this as well as the wire, it's easier when a different tech walks in to work at the site.
Phone = faceplate color
Data = blue
Fax = Black

We also use panduit Exec faceplates for lab eling

The only problem I have with specific jack colors for specific devices (other than data) is this: so when a fax line is moved from one cable to another, do you move or remove the black fax jack? That's seems a bit counterproductive.

------------------

| Signal Communication Systems - Fresno, CA |

| Telephone Systems, Voicemail Syste... & Data Cabling - Central Valley, CA

Well after all the responses I will share my personal (and company) standard.

We use only Hubbell jacks/face plates (UNLESS!!! it is a resisential job then we almost always have to go to Leviton to match colors as Leviton does have the best color choices that I have seen and customers are most happy with, they also have redily available decora plates which goes to matching what the electrician is putting in for outlets and switches).

We go with Office white primarily (which is actually an almond kind of color, off white I guess it would be) or in the case of request just white (which is a bright white).

When doing a voice/data jack we always use a jack that is color of the faceplate for voice 1 which we punch the blue and orange pairs to and then use the opposite color for voice 2 for the green and brown pairs so you have two voice jacks, we always use the USOC jacks for these so that the end user can not plug their rj45 patch cord into them, only an rj11 cord will fit.

As for the data if it is only one we always go with blue and if there are two data's we use what is readily available from Graybar, either yellow or black to match what we pull for wire, white cat3 wire for the voice and blue cat5e/6 for the first data pull a yellow second data so it will either match the jack (yellow) or Halloween (black) either way it is easy to figure out the scheme.

~Chris

Just curious, why do you pull a differant color for the 2nd data?

I think the important thing, is to be consistent with the color you use. I use yellow for data and green for telco. Just make sure you use different colors for data and phone. If you choose a color stick with it don't change, that way if you go back to that company again you know what is what. Now faceplates are different, the comon colors are white and ivory, depends on the color of the wall.

We've standardized on white CAT5E (or CAT6) for data and white CAT3 for voice. We can USUALLY tell by touch which is which, but if that doesn't work, read the cable, it'll tell you what it is! I've had situations where we ran short on a job and had to pick up extra from suppliers who don't necessarily carry our brand (Commscope, by the way); this way white is usually available in whatever brand is available. We also use orange jacks for data and white jacks for voice. For mutliple voice outlets in one faceplate we use different icons.

We always match the faceplate for voice... usually 6 pin jacks...

My standard colors for data are personal choice.. and going back to the consistency thing.. I find that blue looks great on bright white face plates and is found alot in our area.. and when the office has ivory face plates.. then I like using dark green... looks a bit better against the ivory than the blue...

In the several hospital environments we work in, the customer has always specified orange for data... I don't know if this is a standard for that industry or not...

It easier for ongoing operations to settle on a standard and only stock your standards.. than to have to keep multiple colors around for any given situation...

As for cable coloring... I always use white for voice.. and colored cable for data... In large installations, where I have multiple data jacks per workspace... and a large TR, I pull cable consistent with the color for the jack.. ie... Use an open patch bay... populate with white, blue, yellow and green in that order... then pull white, blue, yellow and green cable to every wall jack.. keeps things very consistent and makes troubleshooting easier.. also makes your TR look very clean and professional...

I have even split out the four colors into seperate vertical patch bay racks... one rack with white patch panel jacks, white cable and white wall jacks... and another vertical patch bay rack for blue... and yellow, and green.. etc... that way your jack numbering is clean within each jack color... you can also use this to specify... voice on white... data 1 on blue... fax on yellow... etc.. on green..

All depends on the size of the installation and the number of drops you are trying to organize...

CC