Powered Off for Four Years. Powered Back On Without a Hitch.

A Comnet hardened PoE+ switch sat sealed inside a non-ventilated outdoor enclosure on a federal installation, unused, for roughly four years. When Advanced Communication Cabling, Inc. (ACCI) came back to bring the site's cameras online, they didn't replace the switch — they just turned it back on.

About the Client

Advanced Communication Cabling, Inc., ACCI, was founded in 1992 by Ruth Fritz, and remains a certified Woman-Owned Small Business (WOSB), Economically Disadvantaged Woman-Owned Small Business (EDWOSB), and WBENC Women's Business Enterprise to this day.

The company is headquartered in Falls of Rough, Kentucky, with a second office in Spring Arbor, Michigan, and crews that travel between the two regularly. ACCI got its start doing low-voltage work for K-12 schools, healthcare systems, and commercial and industrial clients, then moved into the federal market roughly 15 years ago, a shift that has since become a core part of the business.

ACCI has purchased Comnet equipment for 12 years and standardizes on it for CCTV design-builds, especially where the job has to hold up under federal scrutiny.

"Company was established in 1992, and the owner of the company's name is Ruth Fritz. It's a woman-owned small business. Started off doing K-through-12 schools, healthcare, industrial, commercial — moved into the federal market about 15 years ago as well."
— Bryan Fritz, ACCI

The Challenge

Federal video security and network deployments push hardware into some of the least forgiving environments on a network: sealed, non-ventilated outdoor enclosures with no HVAC, exposed to full seasonal temperature swings, and often installed in remote corners of a base that go years between maintenance visits.

Federal work adds a second constraint on top of the environmental one. Network equipment has to be NDAA and TAA compliant, and it has to hold up under procurement rules that don't tolerate rip-and-replace surprises. For ACCI, this combination is exactly why the company moved to Comnet in the first place.

"It's NDAA and TAA compliances — that's the federal side that pushes over into that with a lot of the regulations. You guys fit all those, and the lifetime warranty you guys have — that's actually why we started."
— Bryan Fritz, ACCI

The real test of any hardened switch in this environment isn't the spec sheet, it's what happens after the switch has been sitting untouched, unpowered, and unmaintained for years, and someone finally needs it to work again.

The Solution: A Switch That Was Never Meant to Be Forgotten

ACCI's standard approach on outdoor CCTV and network builds is straightforward: run fiber from the building to a NEMA enclosure in the field, and land it on a Comnet hardened PoE+ switch inside the box, no climate control, no conditioning, just the switch and the elements.

"We normally will go with Comnet’s 8-port hardened switch and install that inside the NEMA box. This bypasses doing any kind of AC or heat or anything out there. We've had these sitting inside NEMA boxes for over 10 years now in the Kentucky and Tennessee area, and they're still working today. We don't have to go out and reboot them. We don't have to do anything different. They just keep running."
— Bryan Fritz, ACCI

One installation put that reliability to an unusually direct test. In 2016, ACCI built a parking-lot wireless deployment at a federal installation — four Wi-Fi access points feeding back to a hub built around a Comnet switch inside a sealed NEMA enclosure. In 2022, the access points were decommissioned, and that portion of the site was powered down. The switch and its power supply, however, were simply left in place inside the box.

"Just about three weeks ago, we went over there and installed cameras in that parking lot, turned the switch on, and it worked just as it should. That included the power supply — it was out there in that NEMA box the whole time. The Comnet 8-port hardened PoE switch."
— Bryan Fritz, ACCI

No reconfiguration. No replacement. No resources to diagnose a dead unit before the camera install could even start. That single installation is one of more than 14 NEMA-box deployments ACCI has running on Comnet hardened switches across that same federal post.

A Second Story: Support That Went Further Than It Had To

The dormancy test isn't the only story ACCI points to. On a separate, remote installation, ACCI ran into a Comnet 8-port switch that kept getting damaged in the field. The site had its own dedicated power run straight off a utility pole — an unusual setup that turned into the only support case ACCI has ever had to open with Comnet.

"The Comnet engineering team ended up bringing it into their office, they have a shelf in there with some equipment that stumped them as well. But our issue ended up being there was power coming up through the ground cable, directly from a four-foot ground bar going down into the ground. They were able to dismantle that switch to figure out how the power came into it and tell us where it was coming up through at the installation site. And Comnet still actually honored the warranty when you didn't need to. You worked with us. It was a fantastic experience. That's the only time I've ever had to have a customer service call."
— Bryan Fritz, ACCI

The Results

Across ACCI's federal and commercial installs, the pattern is consistent: less time spent going back to sites, and fewer surprises when equipment that's been sitting untouched for years is finally called on again.

Fewer Site Visits

Switches that survive years of dormancy and temperature extremes without a reset mean ACCI isn't sending crews back to remote sites to troubleshoot hardware.

Federal-Ready Compliance

NDAA and TAA compliance let ACCI bid and deliver federal work on Comnet equipment without compliance rework later in the contract.

Protected Labor Margins

ACCI backs every install with a one-year labor warranty. Equipment that doesn't fail in the field is what keeps a return visit from turning a profitable job into a loss.

Engineering-Level Support When It Matters

On the one occasion ACCI needed a support case, Comnet's engineering team traced a site-specific grounding issue down to the source and honored the warranty.

"I have fewer return visits to a customer's site when they use your Comnet’s equipment than I've seen on other equipment used."
— Bryan Fritz, ACCI

Built for the Installs Where Failure Isn't an Option

• Government & Campus: Long perimeter and parking-lot camera and wireless runs fed from sealed, unconditioned outdoor enclosures.

• Security & Surveillance: CCTV and access-control design-builds where a dead switch means a dark camera feed, not just an inconvenience.

• Federal & Critical Infrastructure: Deployments that must remain NDAA/TAA/BABA compliant through the life of the contract, not just at award.

• Remote & Intermittently-Staffed Sites: Sites where equipment can sit powered down for years and still be expected to come back online on demand.

The Product Behind the Story

ACCI's standard for these enclosures is the Comnet CNGE2FE8MSPOE+, a hardened, managed PoE+ switch purpose-built for exactly this kind of unconditioned, outdoor deployment.

IEEE 802.3at PoE+ delivers up to 30W per port to eight 10/100BASE-T(X) ports, with two Gigabit combo SFP/RJ-45 uplinks for the fiber backbone. The switch is TAA compliant and independently tested to NEMA TS-1/TS-2 and Caltrans environmental standards for direct deployment in unconditioned, out-of-plant enclosures — exactly the conditions it sat in, powered off, for four years before ACCI's crew flipped it back on.

Specify It Once. Trust It for Years.

See why systems integrators like ACCI standardize on Comnet hardened switches for the installs where a return visit isn't an option.

Contact Comnet →

View the CNGE2FE8MSPOE+ Datasheet →

Testimonial and details based on an interview with Bryan Fritz of Advanced Communication Cabling, Inc. (ACCI), conducted August 2026. Specifications subject to change without notice.