Cablify Is Now Hubbell Certified

Cablify has been approved as a Hubbell Certified Installer. It is a change worth writing about, because it affects what we can put in writing at the end of a job.

Until now, the warranty on a cabling system we installed came from us. Our labour, our test results, our word. That is still true, and it has not changed. What has changed is that we can now register completed systems under Hubbell’s Mission Critical program, which puts a 25-year manufacturer warranty behind the components, the performance of the finished links and the integrity of the installation itself.

If you are buying cabling for a building you intend to still be operating in a decade, that difference matters more than the price per drop.

Manufacturer certification programs are not a sticker you buy. Hubbell’s requirements for a Certified Installer are specific:

• A signed Mission Critical agreement with Hubbell, plus a completed contractor questionnaire covering capability and history
• At least one RCDD or LAN Specialist on staff. That is a BICSI Registered Communications Distribution Designer, not a sales title
• Installation crews made available for Hubbell training programs, with ongoing BICSI continuing education credits
• Installation carried out to TIA/EIA standards and Hubbell’s own installation guidelines
• Minimum sales performance levels maintained with the manufacturer, which is Hubbell’s way of confirming you actually install their product regularly rather than once a year

That last point is the one most buyers never think about. A contractor who touches a product line twice a year does not know its termination quirks. Certification is partly a volume test for that reason.

Hubbell’s Mission Critical warranty is a system warranty, and it runs 25 years from registration. It covers three things:

• Components. The jacks, patch panels, cable, fiber hardware and other connecting hardware in the registered channel
• Performance. The finished channels perform to the category standard they were certified against, so a Cat6A channel keeps meeting Cat6A
• Installation integrity. The workmanship on the registered system, which is the part a product-only warranty never covers

There are three conditions to register a system, and all three have to be met:

1. Hubbell connecting hardware
2. Cable from Hubbell or an approved partner
3. Installation by a Hubbell Certified Installer, which we now are

Mix in a bargain patch panel from an unknown brand and the system does not register. That is worth knowing before you accept a quote that looks unusually cheap. A cabling quote is only comparable to another cabling quote if you know what hardware is in both of them.

Nothing about our field process changes, because the documentation was already there. Every permanent link we install gets tested with a calibrated Fluke certification tester, not a $30 continuity checker. You get the full test report, per drop, with the pass margins visible.

For a warrantied system, that test data goes to Hubbell along with the bill of materials and the as-built record, and the warranty is issued against your building and your specific installation. You end up with three things in your hands:

• Certification test results for every link
• Labelled, documented port and rack schedules
• A registered 25-year warranty certificate tied to the site

If you sell the building or hand facilities off to a new IT manager, that paperwork is what saves the next person from re-pulling cable they cannot trust.

The warranty applies to copper and fiber structured cabling systems we design and install, including:

• Cat6A installations for Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 access points, PoE++ devices and 10G to the desk
• Cat8 runs for top-of-rack and short-reach 25G/40G links in server rooms
• Cat5e and Cat6 for voice, cameras, door controllers and general workstation drops
• Single-mode and multimode fiber backbones between MDF and IDF closets, and between buildings on a campus
• Rack builds, patch panel work, cable management and pathway installs that go with them

Typical sites are offices, warehouses and distribution centres, new construction and base building work, schools, healthcare, and game and esports studios. Anything where somebody is going to be annoyed in six years if a link fails is a candidate for a registered warranty.

These get blurred in sales conversations, so here is the plain version.

A contractor guarantee is a promise from the company that did the work. It is only as good as that company still being in business, still having the records, and still willing to send a crew. Most in this trade run one or two years on labour.

A manufacturer system warranty is registered with Hubbell against your building. It survives your contractor. If the installing company is gone in year twelve, the warranty is still on file and another certified installer can be engaged against it.

We offer both. Our own workmanship coverage on top of a registered Hubbell Mission Critical warranty on the system. If a competitor tells you they offer a “lifetime warranty” on cabling, ask which manufacturer program it is registered under and ask to see a sample certificate. Quite often there is no program behind it.

Certification did not make us more expensive. We buy Hubbell product at certified installer pricing, and we still quote competitively against every other cabling contractor in the GTA. We quote per drop, per floor or per project depending on how you want to compare it, and we will tell you plainly where a spec is more than you need.

Call for a quote and ask us to price it both ways, standard install and registered warranty system, so you can see the actual delta rather than guessing at it. Most clients are surprised by how small it is.

More on scope, timelines, after-hours work and what drives cost is on our data cabling in Toronto page. If you are outside the core, we work across Southern Ontario, including Bolton and the Highway 50 industrial corridor. You can also see the rest of what we do from the Cablify homepage, including access control and camera systems, which we usually cable at the same time as the data.