Commercial HQ — 8-floor Cat6A refit

The challenge

A Tier-1 M&E contractor needed a cabling subcontractor for a phased Cat6A refit across eight occupied floors of a commercial HQ in central London. Trading floors had to remain live throughout — no unplanned outages, no snagging on handover day.

The consultant specification called for Cat6A horizontal cabling, OM4 risers between floor distributors and two consolidated comms rooms, with every link certified to ISO/IEC 11801 before sectional completion.

Programme & mobilisation

We joined the programme at detailed design stage and aligned outlet counts, route drawings and containment interfaces with the main contractor’s fit-out sequence. Work was phased floor-by-floor over fourteen weeks:

• Weeks 1–2: Comms room 1 build-out, backbone risers and floor 8 (unoccupied shell)
• Weeks 3–10: Floors 7–2 — weekend and out-of-hours containment where trading activity required
• Weeks 11–14: Floor 1, comms room 2 consolidation, final testing and documentation

Site teams held daily coordination with the M&E package lead. RAMS, inductions and access permits were managed through the principal contractor’s portal.

Technical scope

• Cat6A horizontal cabling — 1,840 outlets to floor distributors, labelled to TIA-606-B
• OM4 fibre risers — dual-path backbone linking eight floor closets to two comms rooms
• Containment — basket tray and trunking coordinated with fire-stopping and builder’s work holes
• Patch panels — termination, dressing and port schedules aligned to test database IDs
• Testing — Fluke DSX certification on every copper link; OLTS on all fibre pairs

Standards & handover

Every copper link was certified to ISO/IEC 11801. The handover pack included:

• PDF certification results per outlet ID
• As-built floor plans with outlet schedules
• Rack elevations and patch schedules for both comms rooms
• Fibre test results and splice records for all riser pairs

Outcome

All 1,840 links passed first time — zero remedial retests. The main contractor signed off two days ahead of the sectional completion date. The client’s IT team took possession of both comms rooms with labelled, documented infrastructure ready for active equipment.

This project is representative of our structured data cabling and fibre optic work across London and the South East.

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Client identity withheld under NDA. Sector, scale and outcomes are representative of work delivered. References available on request.