SonarNext by Sonar Technologies International
Data cabling & network switching, designed, tested and documented together
Cat6 and Cat6A copper, fibre backbones, racks and comms rooms installed by registered, licensed cablers, then switching designed for the access points, cameras and devices that depend on it — with test results, cable schedule and switch configs handed over at the end.
What we do
The physical network, from the cable in the ceiling to the switch config
Wi-Fi, cameras, phones, scanners and door controllers all end up at a cable and a switch port, and when either is wrong the fault gets blamed on the device. We design, install, test and document both layers together, so each suits the other.
Structured cabling
Cat6 and Cat6A copper, OM3, OM4 and OS2 fibre, containment, patching and labelling, installed by registered, licensed cablers and certification tested.
Racks, comms rooms & audits
New comms rooms and racks, remediation of the ones that have grown into a tangle of unlabelled patch leads, and tracing and testing of cabling nobody has a record of.
Switch design & supply
Layers, VLANs, PoE budgets and multi-gigabit ports sized for what you are actually deploying, on Cisco Meraki, HPE Aruba Central, UniFi or conventionally managed switching, sourced, staged and installed.
Cabling outlives two or three generations of the equipment plugged into it, so we specify it for what the building will need later. Cat6 is still a sound choice for desks and general outlets: gigabit to the full 100 metre channel, and 2.5 and 5 gigabit in most installations. For new access point drops, and anywhere that needs 10 gigabit over copper at full length, we install Cat6A, with runs kept within the 90 metre permanent link and routed clear of lighting ballasts and VSDs. Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 access points ship with multi-gigabit uplinks and draw more PoE, and Cat6A copes better with both the bandwidth and the heat of a bundle carrying high-power PoE.
You may also be quoted Cat7 or Cat7A. Neither is a TIA standard, their connectors are not the RJ45 your switches and access points use, and terminated on RJ45 hardware they perform as well-installed Cat6A at a higher price. In Australian commercial work they are rarely the right answer, and we will say so. Existing Cat5e is tested before we recommend replacing it; plenty of it is fine for the gigabit devices on it now.
Fibre backbones are multimode OM3 or OM4 between comms rooms in the same building, where runs are short and optics are cheap, and single-mode OS2 between buildings, across large sites and wherever distance or future speed is uncertain, with spare cores and spare pathway capacity, because pulling a second fibre later costs far more than the cores do today.
Containment, racks & certification
Built to be worked on later, and tested before the ceiling is closed
Containment
Cable tray, catenary wire across high-bay warehouses, conduit and droppers, on routes that stay reachable and clear of other services, with spare capacity for the next access point, camera or dock controller.
Racks & comms rooms
Rack layout, patch panels, cable management, UPS and power distribution, planned so patch leads are short, airflow works and a technician can find a port without unplugging three others. Existing racks are re-patched, traced and labelled, usually over nights or weekends; moves, adds and changes are done to the same standard and added to the same records.
Labelling
Every outlet, panel port and fibre labelled at both ends against one cable schedule, matching the switch port and the device name. When a port drops at 5am, the person at the rack should find the far end without a torch and a guess.
Testing & certification
All cabling is installed by registered, licensed cablers. Copper is certification tested per run, fibre is loss tested end to end, and failures are re-terminated or replaced and re-tested before handover. A run that fails certification usually fails in production too, intermittently, after the ceiling is closed, and a dated report settles later warranty and fault questions.
Cable & network audits
Find out what is in the ceiling before you build on it
Most sites we inherit have cabling from several contractors over several years, with no single record of it. Before recommending new switching or a Wi-Fi upgrade, we trace outlets to patch panels and switch ports and fibre between comms rooms, test representative runs or all of them for what they can actually carry, including multi-gigabit and higher-power PoE, and hand you a cable schedule, patch register and floor-plan mark-up you keep whether or not we do the remediation. The report ranks fixes and their cost by operational risk rather than tidiness.
Cabling audits often sit inside a broader IT health check and network audit, which also covers switching, firewalls, wireless and security configuration.
Switching
Switches designed around what plugs into them
A switch is chosen on four things: how many ports, how fast, how much power they deliver, and where it sits in the network. Get one wrong and it shows up elsewhere — access points that reboot when cameras draw power at night, Wi-Fi bottlenecked on a gigabit uplink, or a flat network where one infected laptop can reach the payroll server.
Layers and segmentation. Access switches connect devices; on larger sites, distribution and core layers aggregate them. Layer 2 switches forward within a VLAN, Layer 3 switches also route between VLANs, keeping inter-segment traffic off the Fortinet firewall at the edge where that is appropriate. Small sites rarely need three tiers and we will not design them in for the sake of it. Corporate users, guests, voice, cameras, building systems, scanners and IoT each get their own segment with deliberate rules between them: the cheapest security control on the network, and the most often skipped.
PoE and multi-gigabit. We add up worst-case draw for every access point, camera and phone against the per-port standard (802.3at up to 30 W, 802.3bt up to 90 W at the switch) and the switch's total budget. Many Wi-Fi 7 access points need more than 802.3at, and PTZ cameras with heaters more still. Vendor-specific high-power PoE such as Cisco UPoE is worth knowing about, but we design to 802.3bt so you are not locked in. Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 access points can push past a gigabit, so they get 2.5, 5 or 10 gigabit ports where it matters, with fibre uplinks and optics to match. Planning a wireless refresh? See upgrading to Wi-Fi 7.
Resilience. Stacking, redundant uplinks, redundant power supplies and UPS where an outage would stop the operation, single switches where it would not. The level of redundancy should be a business decision made on paper, not a default.
Management and rollout. Cisco Meraki, HPE Aruba Central and UniFi manage switches, access points and often firewalls from one dashboard, with firmware, monitoring and templates across every site; the trade-off is ongoing licensing. Conventionally managed switching has no subscription and suits sites with in-house skills or strict rules about where management traffic goes, but needs discipline around backups and firmware, which we can take on. For multi-site rollouts, zero-touch provisioning claims switches to a template before they ship, so every site gets the same build without anyone configuring a switch from a laptop on a warehouse floor.
Industrial and harsh sites. Plant floors, yards, cold stores and farm sheds get industrial DIN-rail switches with wide temperature ratings, in enclosures suited to the dust, moisture or wash-down they will see. Related: warehouse networking and farm and rural networking.
Vendor-neutral
The right switch for the site, not the brand we happen to sell
SonarNext is a partner of Cisco, HPE Aruba Networking, Ubiquiti and Fortinet, and designs, deploys and supports other enterprise switching platforms where they are already in place or a better fit. The cheapest switch rarely has the cheapest life, so options are compared on hardware, licensing over the term, support, power draw and staff time to run them, and we do not specify ports, licences or tiers you will not use.
Switches, optics, firewalls and racks are sourced through our IT hardware procurement service, or from the shop for standard items. Hardware we install is configured, firmware updated and bench tested before delivery, then labelled and delivered ready to rack, so the on-site window is spent installing, not configuring.
How we work
From site walk to handover pack
Site walk and design
We look at the building, comms rooms, existing cabling and switching, and what will be connected over the next few years, then itemise outlets, cable categories, fibre, containment, racks and switch design in a fixed quote, with scope and timing agreed in writing.
Staging and installation
Switches and firewalls are configured, updated and tested before they reach site. Cabling, containment and racks go in around your operations or the construction programme, then switching is installed and cut over.
Testing and handover
Every run certified, every port verified, and the documentation handed over; if we manage the network afterwards we keep it current.
A network without records gets more expensive to support every year, because every change starts with somebody tracing cables. Every project finishes with a handover pack you own, in a form the next technician can use.
For a new site, see office IT fit-out or warehouse IT fit-outs. For the wireless layer that sits on top of this cabling, see wireless network design and warehouse Wi-Fi installation.
- Certification test results for every run
- Cable schedule
- Patch register, panel to switch port
- As-built drawings with outlet positions
- Switch and firewall configurations
- VLAN and IP addressing plan
SonarNext is the infrastructure brand of Sonar Technologies International — ISO 9001 certified, 30-plus years in the market, more than 200 customers — based in Macquarie Park, NSW and working across metro and regional Australia.
FAQs
Common questions
Should we install Cat6 or Cat6A cabling?
Cat6 is still a sound choice for most desk and general-purpose outlets, carrying gigabit to the full 100 metre channel and 2.5 or 5 gigabit in most installations. For new access point drops, and anywhere that needs 10 gigabit over copper at full length, we install Cat6A. It handles multi-gigabit Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 uplinks and the heat of high-power PoE better, and cabling usually outlives several generations of equipment.
Is Cat7 or Cat7A worth paying for?
Rarely, in Australian commercial work. Cat7 and Cat7A are not TIA standards, the connectors they are specified with are not the RJ45 your switches and access points use, and terminated on RJ45 hardware they perform as well-installed Cat6A. We would rather spend that budget on Cat6A, spare fibre cores or better containment.
Are your cablers licensed, and do we get the test results?
Yes. All cabling is installed by registered, licensed cablers and certification tested once terminated, with fibre loss tested end to end. Any run that fails is fixed and re-tested before handover, and the test results are handed to you with the cable schedule, patch register and as-built drawings.
Our comms room is a mess and nobody knows what is patched where. Can you fix it?
Yes. We start with a cable audit that traces outlets to panels and switch ports, then re-patch, label and tidy the rack, usually staged over nights or weekends so the business keeps running. You end up with a patch register and cable schedule that match what is physically there.
Will our existing switches support Wi-Fi 7 access points?
Often not at full capability. Many Wi-Fi 7 access points need more power than 802.3at delivers and have 2.5, 5 or 10 gigabit uplinks, so a gigabit switch with a small PoE budget either limits them or cannot power them at all. We check PoE per port and in total, uplink speeds and the cabling behind them before recommending a refresh.
Should we choose cloud-managed or on-prem managed switches?
Cloud-managed platforms such as Cisco Meraki, HPE Aruba Central and UniFi make multi-site management, templates and zero-touch provisioning straightforward, in exchange for ongoing licensing. On-prem managed switching avoids the subscription and suits teams with network skills or strict requirements about management traffic. We compare both on total cost over the term and how your team actually works.
Which switch brands do you work with?
We are partners of Cisco, HPE Aruba Networking, Ubiquiti and Fortinet, and we design for and support other enterprise platforms where they are already in place or a better fit. Switches can be bought through our hardware procurement service or the shop, and anything we install is staged and configured before delivery.
Ready to talk through your project?
Tell us what you are planning — a new site, a network that keeps dropping out, or IT that needs a safer pair of hands. We will come back with straight answers and a clear quote.