How many network drops does your building need?
Count the things that need a cable, not the people. Most cabling quotes come in short because nobody counted the printers, the cameras, the door readers and the machine in the corner.
About this estimator
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- Updated 2026-08-24
A drop is one cable run from the rack to one location, terminated at both ends. What decides your count is not headcount. It is every fixed device in the building that needs a wired connection, plus the ones that will exist in three years.
This gives you a number to put in front of a contractor. Where it earns its keep is the spare-capacity line: adding a single drop after the ceiling is closed costs several times what it costs during the original pull.
Your estimate
Drops to quote
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What is behind the number
Estimates in Canadian dollars before tax, for comparing quotes and spotting a gap. A real number comes from someone walking the building.
What the number does not tell you
It does not tell you the price. Drop count is one of about a dozen things that move a cabling quote, and the others are mostly about the building: ceiling height and type, whether the space is occupied, fire-stopping through rated walls, conduit versus open ceiling, and distance from the rack. There is a longer piece on what actually moves the number.
It also assumes every run lands inside the 90 metre permanent link limit. A run longer than that is a design problem, not a longer cable.
The switch question nobody asks until the quote arrives
Your drop count sets the switch size, and ports come in 8, 16, 24 and 48. That part is arithmetic. The part that catches people is power: anything running a camera, an access point or a door reader draws Power over Ethernet, and a switch has a total power budget across all its ports, not just a count of them.
Ask for the PoE budget figure in watts, not the number of PoE ports. A 24-port switch that can power eight cameras and a 24-port switch that can power twenty-four are both sold as 24-port PoE switches.
Want a real number instead of a range?
An estimate is enough to decide whether to start. A quote needs somebody to look at the building. Ours are fixed scope and fixed price, agreed before any work begins.
Before you call
Is two drops per desk really necessary?
It is the normal spec, and the second one is cheap while somebody is already pulling to that location. It covers a phone, a second machine, a dock, or the thing you have not thought of yet. If budget is genuinely tight, one per desk plus 20 percent spare capacity elsewhere is a reasonable compromise.
We are a small office. Do we need a survey?
For under about a dozen drops in a simple space, an accurate count and a photo of the ceiling is usually enough to quote from. The survey earns its cost in buildings with hard ceilings, multiple floors, or anywhere the pathway is not obvious.
What if the number looks higher than we expected?
It usually does, and that is the point. The devices people forget are printers, access points, cameras, door readers and displays. If your own count was much lower, check which of those you left out before deciding the estimate is wrong.