What a BICSI RCDD on the Supplier's Staff Is Worth on a Data Job

A Registered Communications Distribution Designer credential from BICSI isn't a sales badge. It certifies that the person holding it has been tested on designing communications infrastructure correctly, and it matters most on the jobs where a design mistake doesn't surface until testing, which is the most expensive time to find one.

What Benfield Data Comm is

Benfield Data Comm, formed in 1997 as a separate division of Benfield Electric Supply, carries a large data and low voltage inventory in both Mount Vernon and White Plains, and has a BICSI Registered RCDD on staff. That's a specific, checkable credential attached to a real person on the team, not a general claim about expertise.

What the RCDD actually changes on a project

A distributor selling fiber and CAT 6 cable without design expertise can sell the right part numbers and still leave a design that doesn't perform once it's installed and tested. An RCDD on staff means project submissions and testing procedures get reviewed by someone qualified to catch a design problem before installation starts, not after a technician is running an OTDR down a run that's already closed up in the wall.

Testing and troubleshooting, not just supply

• Demonstrations and training on fusion splicing for fiber terminations.
• OLTS and power meter and light source testing to verify a fiber link actually performs to spec.
• OTDR testing and troubleshooting when a run needs to be diagnosed rather than just certified.
• Project submissions and documentation covering all phases of project management on the data side.

All of that is work a project needs done correctly whether or not the distributor supplying the materials is the one doing it. Having it available from the same source that sold the cable removes a handoff that would otherwise happen between a supplier and a separate testing contractor.

Where this fits in a larger project

Data comm work on a commercial job rarely stands alone, it usually runs alongside the electrical scope. For a general contractor or electrical contractor managing a job with a significant data infrastructure component, having the design review, the material supply and the testing capability come from one place, with a credentialed RCDD attached to the design side, is what keeps that scope from becoming its own separate coordination problem.

Benfield also offers a virtual consultation option, a live video call with the business from a phone, tablet or computer, requestable through a form on their site. For a contractor who wants an RCDD's read on a design question before an order goes in, and doesn't have time to make it out to Mount Vernon or White Plains for it, that's a way to get the design review earlier in the process rather than after materials are already on order.

Josh Brite, who leads Benfield Data Comm, comes up by name in reviews from contractors who work with the division directly. One, an electrical contractor of forty years, calls him knowledgeable and helpful, always willing to take the extra step to make sure a project's needs are met. Another, from Garcia Electrical Construction, describes a long-term relationship with Benfield specifically on data supplies, with Josh Brite as the go-to contact, knowledgeable, accessible and reliable. That's the credential behind the credential, an RCDD who is also the person contractors actually reach when a data job needs a real answer.

The cable and the connectors are the easy part to source. The design behind them, and the testing that proves it was right, is where an RCDD on staff earns its place on the job.