Structured Cabling · Case study
Structured Cabling for a Multi-Floor Paris Office Fit-Out and Two Regional Sites.
A representative walkthrough of copper and fiber cabling for a Paris fit-out and two French regional sites.
Representative scenario. Last reviewed October 2026.
Engagement profile
- Customer
- Professional services firm moving into a new multi-floor head office
- Scale
- 3 sites, about 720 outlets across 4 Paris floors, plus a Lyon office and a small Marseille branch
- Service
- Structured Cabling
- Where
- France
Representative scenario. This case study shows how Deploris scopes and delivers this kind of work. It does not describe a real client, and no results are claimed. Want a plan like this for your own sites? Request a quote.
Quick answer
What does this engagement look like?
Structured cabling for a multi-floor Paris office fit-out with sites in Lyon and Marseille means surveying pathways, installing Cat6A copper and single-mode and multimode fiber, terminating patch panels, and certification testing against EN 50173 and ISO/IEC 11801 classes. Deploris runs it under a written scope with one engagement manager and vetted local engineers. The customer receives floor plans, per-run test results, labelled as-built records, and a closeout report.
THE CHALLENGE
The challenge.
The customer is taking four floors of a managed office building in Paris while the interior fit-out contractor is still building partitions, ceilings, and power. The cabling has to be pulled after the ceiling grid exists but before tiles close the voids, and it has to finish before the furniture installer and the network team need live ports. Alongside the head office, a mid-sized Lyon office is being refitted on a similar timeline, and a small Marseille branch needs a lighter installation plus a fiber uplink to its carrier handoff. One scope, three buildings, three building managers, and one set of documentation the customer's IT team can actually use.
The difficulty is less the cable itself than the coordination around it. Each building has its own rules for out-of-hours work, freight lift bookings, deliveries, and contractor safety paperwork. Copper must be certified to a stated class, fiber must be tested to a stated loss budget, and the fire performance of the jacket has to match what the building and its insurer expect. If any of those are decided late, the work is redone above a finished ceiling. The customer also wants one engagement manager to answer to, not three local subcontractors with three different labelling habits.
Constraints the plan had to respect
- Fit-out sequencing: cable can only be pulled once containment and the ceiling grid are in, and must be tested before tiles close and the furniture installer arrives.
- Building rules: Paris and Lyon landlords typically restrict noisy work such as core drilling to set hours, require freight lift reservations, and ask outside contractors for a signed prevention plan before access is granted.
- Working-time norms in France: evening and weekend shifts need to be agreed in advance with the building and the engineers, and the August holiday period reduces availability of landlord staff and suppliers.
- Fire and materials: low-smoke, halogen-free jackets with an Euroclass rating under the EU Construction Products Regulation are specified to the building's fire safety requirements, and are sourced from EU distributors with documentation.
- Documentation language: site instructions, safety paperwork, and labelling conventions are agreed in French with English closeout records, so both the local building staff and the customer's IT team can read them.
HOW THE WORK RUNS
How the work is run.
- 1
Survey, scope, and standards choice
The engagement manager and a Paris engineer walk each site with the fit-out project manager and the customer's IT lead. They record ceiling void heights, riser and shaft access, comms room candidates, slab penetration rules, and where wireless access points, cameras, and meeting room screens need drops. The written scope names the copper class (Class EA, Category 6A), the fiber types (OM4 multimode and OS2 single-mode), the cabling standards the design follows (EN 50173 and ISO/IEC 11801 for design, EN 50174 for installation practice), the test limits, and the exact acceptance criteria. Nothing starts until the customer approves it in writing.
- 2
Design, bill of materials, and sourcing
Floor plans show outlet IDs, cabinet positions, tray routes, and every horizontal run checked against the 90 meter permanent link limit. A backbone plan covers the riser fiber between floor distributors and the main room, plus the single-mode uplink at Marseille and a site link to Lyon. The bill of materials lists cable, patch panels, faceplates, fiber cassettes, LC and MPO trunks, and cabinets, with CE marking and fire classification documents for each cable. Lead times are checked early, because shipping from outside the EU adds customs paperwork that EU distributor stock avoids.
- 3
Access planning and mobilization
The engagement manager books freight lifts and loading slots with each building manager, submits the contractor safety paperwork the landlord asks for, and confirms who holds the keys to risers and comms rooms. Engineers' training records, such as work at height and low-voltage electrical awareness, are checked against what each building requires. Out-of-hours shifts are agreed with the landlord, not improvised. For Paris, deliveries are timed around city traffic and low-emission zone rules, and materials are staged in a locked comms room rather than in open floor areas.
- 4
Installation, floor by floor
Teams install tray and basket first, then pull horizontal cable in labelled bundles with bend radius and pull tension kept within the manufacturer's limits. Cable is terminated on keystone jacks and patch panels, with each drop labelled at both ends before termination so labelling is never a cleanup job. Riser fiber is pulled with protective pulling eyes, spliced or connectorized, and dressed into cassettes. Daily photo logs show tray fill, firestopping of penetrations, and cabinet layout. The engagement manager reports progress against the written scope each day, with one point of contact for the customer and the fit-out contractor.
- 5
Certification, as-built records, and closeout
Every copper link is tested to permanent link limits with a Fluke DSX-class certifier, and every fiber link gets a Tier 1 loss test with an OTDR trace where the scope asks for it. Testers are in calibration, and the firmware version is recorded. Failures are traced, fixed, and retested, never deleted. The closeout report bundles the test result files and PDF summaries, as-built floor plans, the cable schedule that maps outlet to panel port, labelled cabinet photos, and the manufacturer warranty registration where the product line allows it. The engagement manager walks the customer's IT team through the report before the network team begins patching.
WHAT WAS PRODUCED
What the engagement delivers.
Each item links to a full guide with its scope, process and FAQs.
WHAT THE CUSTOMER ENDS UP WITH
What the customer ends up with.
- 01A written scope and signed-off design that name the copper class, fiber types, test limits, and acceptance criteria for all three sites before anything is installed.
- 02Per-link test result files and PDF summaries for every copper and fiber run, tied to outlet IDs so the customer's IT team can look up any link.
- 03As-built floor plans, a cable schedule, and labelled cabinet photos that match what is physically in the buildings.
- 04A single closeout report in English, built from French-language site records, that the customer's IT team can hand to future contractors.
- 05A clear record of which items were handled by Deploris, the fit-out contractor, and the landlord, so any later fault can be traced to the responsible party.
WHAT APPLIES TO YOUR PROJECT
Decisions that apply to similar projects.
Agree the copper class, fiber types, and test limits in the written scope before design starts. Late changes to the standard force retests and sometimes recabling above a finished ceiling.
Treat building access as a workstream with its own owner. Freight lift bookings, contractor safety paperwork, and out-of-hours approvals take longer than the cable pulls they unlock, so the engagement manager requests them at kickoff, not on the day.
Label and photograph as you install, not at the end. A label printed from the cable schedule and applied before termination makes the as-built records and the test results match without manual reconciliation.
WHERE IT APPLIES
Metros in this scenario.
Local engineers in each metro, coordinated by one engagement manager. Open a metro to see local details.
QUESTIONS
Frequently asked questions.
Which standards apply to structured cabling in a French office?
Can one provider cabling Paris, Lyon, and a smaller branch in the same project?
How are copper and fiber links certified before handover?
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