Open Questions · Who Must Answer What

The 13 experts and the critic raised 141 raw open questions. Deduplicated and translated into plain language, they collapse to 40, grouped by the only thing that matters for getting them closed: who has to answer. Tick a question when it is answered — state is saved in this browser. Items flagged W1 must be asked this week (Jul 6–10) or the mid-August go-live slips.

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this-week (W1)

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The 3 blocking questions — everything else queues behind these

Do the 133 desks get live wired Ethernet, or is the office WiFi-only? Wired desks turn this from a 7-cable job into a ~150-drop structured-cabling project: different switch layer, different vendor class, and roughly double the budget. Nothing about the switch/rack PO is final until this is answered.
Which building — name and exact address? It determines which ISPs are already live in the riser (internet in ~2 weeks vs 2 months), every landlord fit-out rule, and where the PMO questionnaire goes. Until answered, half the questions on this page cannot even be asked.
Is the ₱318,752 VAT-inc budget approved — plus the option calls (spare AP ₱23,000 · second ISP line ~₱10,000–25,000/mo · server-room aircon · AV tier)? The equipment PO must go out this week: the APs and the 10G PoE++ switch are frequently 2–4-week indent (import) items in the Philippines.

1 · Paul / management

Decisions only management can make. Most of them gate a purchase order or an application that must leave this week.

2 · Landlord / building PMO

A full 15-point PMO questionnaire is drafted and ready to email the day the building is named. These are the decision-critical items from it.

Which internet providers are already installed in the building riser today (PLDT, Globe, Converge, RISE…), and what is the process, timeline, and fee for admitting a new one? W1

One phone call decides whether internet arrives in ~2 weeks or 2 months — the single longest lead item to mid-August.

Send the current Fit-Out Manual with the fee schedule: construction bond amount and refund terms, plan-review fee, monthly monitoring fee, utility deposits, and the completion sign-off / occupancy document list. W1

Sets the true cost and paperwork lead of the whole fit-out; the bond alone can be months of rent.

How many working days is drawing approval from a complete submission, and can the low-voltage sheets (cabling, WiFi APs) be approved separately or expedited?

The ceiling closes in 2–4 weeks; slow plan vetting eats the entire cable-pull window.

Contractor rules in one answer: accreditation documents, gate-pass lead time, required insurance (CARI %, public-liability minimum, co-insured), permitted work hours + after-hours charges, and hot-work permit rules for drilling/coring.

Discovered late, any one of these adds 1–2 weeks; the insurance certificate is needed before the installer may even mobilize.

Where may the server-room aircon condenser go (AC ledge, service balcony, roof), how far from our unit, is there a condensate drain within ~10 m — and what are the after-hours building-AC hours and charges? Also: any objection to an indoor 5G backup antenna placed near a window?

The 4.97 sqm server room has no exterior wall and most split units allow only 15–20 m of refrigerant pipe; building AC is assumed OFF nights/weekends.

Does the building generator feed tenant floors (not just life-safety), how long is the transfer gap when power fails, and how do we get the server room onto emergency power?

With a genset, the planned 1.6 kVA UPS rides the 10–60 s gap and the brownout problem disappears; without one, WiFi dies ~15 min into a rotational brownout.

Who is the building's accredited fire-alarm (FDAS) contractor, what do they charge to add one smoke-detector point, can they give us a relay contact for the door maglock release — and who signs the BFP fire inspection, landlord or tenant?

Only the accredited FDAS firm may legally tie into the building system; the maglock cannot pass fire inspection without the release relay.

3 · Fit-out contractor

The construction schedule is the second critical path next to the ISP. Everything here is one site meeting.

On what exact date does the suspended ceiling close — in writing? W1

Every cable pull (APs, AV, CCTV, desk drops if approved) must happen before it; this date anchors the whole project schedule.

What is the ceiling in each zone — suspended tile, exposed slab, or gypsum — at what height, is the void above it used to return air to the aircon, and where do the concrete beams run (please share the reflected ceiling plan + structural grid)? W1

Sets the cable rating we must buy (plenum vs standard), the AP mounting hardware, and the pull labor — needed before the cable PO.

What are the meeting/conference-room walls made of — glass/drywall or concrete block — and do the server-room walls go full-height to the slab or stop at the ceiling?

Concrete meeting rooms need an 8th AP inside; short server-room walls leak hot air and weaken physical security.

Is the main entrance a framed-glass door or a solid door, and may access-control hardware be drilled into the door and frame?

Glass needs a maglock with fail-safe design; a solid door takes a simpler, safer electric strike.

Is your permit package (building / electrical / electronics) filed with Cebu City OBO, and can the network installer ride under it as your subcontractor? W1

Riding under the main permit avoids a separate engineer-signed submission — which costs weeks.

Can two dedicated 20 A circuits for the server room, plus a surge protector at the panel, be added to the electrical drawings before the July drawing freeze — and is our supply single-phase or three-phase? W1

After the walls close this becomes rework; the phase answer decides which surge-protector model to buy.

Will your scope include supplying and installing the server-room split-type aircon (unit, piping, condensate drain), and by what date?

A 4.97 sqm interior room running 300–500 W of IT load 24/7 overheats without it — this must be injected into the fit-out scope in July.

Is floor plan DRAFT 02 final or is a revision coming — and does the desk benching furniture have a built-in cable spine, with what confirmed delivery date?

AP positions freeze only after the furniture/partition layout is final; the furniture spine decides how desk cabling (if approved) is run.

4 · Installation vendor(s)

Prowatcher and/or the competing cabling bidders, plus the UniFi distributors (MEC, iConnect).

Do MEC or iConnect have the U7 Pro XGS and the USW-Pro-XG-10-PoE in Philippine stock today, and what is their written RMA turnaround? W1

Nobody publishes PH stock online — it takes a phone call; out-of-stock means a 2–4-week import that eats the schedule.

Prowatcher re-quote: fixed pesos with 30-day validity, a BIR-registered VAT invoice with hardware and services on separate lines, delivery to Cebu + mounting hardware included, and the PoE+ injector corrected to PoE++? W1

The January quote was FX-conditioned and ~29% over US list at January rates; the quoted injector cannot legitimately power the chosen APs.

Confirm the workmanship & safety spec in the PO: flush/recessed AP trims on the tile grid, white cable whips only, safety tether to the slab (Cebu is seismically active), DOLE construction-safety compliance + PPE, no overhead ceiling work above occupied desks after move-in, and liability insurance certificate before mobilization.

A falling 1 kg AP over a desk is a liability; visible-conduit sign-off must happen before installation, not after.

Agree that final payment is conditional on one handover binder: as-built drawings, per-drop cable test certificates (~₱300–500/drop), serial/warranty register, controller config export, the IP plan with static/DHCP reservations, ISP account documents, and admin credentials handed to the company vault.

This is what makes the network maintainable by whoever touches it next — and it costs nothing to demand up front.

5 · ISP(s)

Ask two providers in parallel (e.g. RISE + PLDT Enterprise or Converge) — do not serialize.

What is your firm installation lead time to this specific building — do you already have entry facilities in the riser, or is a new building-entry application needed? W1

Existing entry ≈ 2 weeks (RISE averages ~1.8); missing entry facilities commonly means 4–8 weeks — the difference decides mid-August.

How is the connection handed off — a fiber module (SFP/SFP+) or a regular Ethernet jack — and where does it physically land: inside our server room, or in a building telecom room on another floor? W1

The reused UCG-Fiber gateway takes fiber directly; a telecom-room landing adds an inter-floor riser run that the landlord may require an accredited contractor for.

Provide written quotes for 500 Mbps–1 Gbps: business broadband vs a dedicated line with an uptime guarantee, plus a second line on a physically different path for backup.

Feeds the management service-level decision with real numbers instead of the ₱10,000–60,000/mo estimate range.

6 · Cebu ops team on the ground

Things only someone physically in Cebu (Xerxis / office admin) can check or own.

Bench-test the reused UCG-Fiber and U7 Pro XGS now — power on, update firmware, export the config; and when the first new AP arrives, unbox-test that the Philippine firmware really enables the 6 GHz band. W1

A dead reused gateway discovered in August kills the cutover; the RF plan assumes 6 GHz (legal in PH, 5925–6425 MHz) actually works.

When can the gateway + AP be unplugged from the old BPI Philam office, who transports them — and who owns the exit tasks: restoring ceiling penetrations per the lease, cancelling the old internet contract (check lock-in penalty), factory-resetting anything left behind?

The moment the gear moves, the old office loses WiFi — this needs a named owner and a date, not an assumption.

Stand in the future server room with a phone and run a speed test on both Smart and Globe 5G — does a usable signal reach that interior room?

If not, the 5G backup needs a window-mounted antenna, a longer Ethernet run, and a ₱840–1,200 surge protector — cheap now, annoying later.

How many people attend an all-hands in the Multi-Purpose Hall at once, and do they bring laptops or just phones?

100+ people standing in 42 sqm is the densest WiFi spot in the office — the answer sizes that AP's capacity plan.

How many printers/MFPs will the office have and where exactly? (The plan assumes 3: reception, open-plan center, pantry/admin side.)

Printers want wired drops — adding them while the ceiling is open costs almost nothing.

Who owns day-2 operations: watching after-hours alerts (building guards, a monitoring contract, or Xerxis' phone?), the day-1 staff onboarding (SSID email, floor-walker, reception voucher training), the 5G SIM billing + data-cap alert, and a monthly failover test?

A door-forced or over-temperature alert at 2 a.m. only matters if a named person responds to it.

Sources: open questions from all 13 expert briefs (rounds 1 & 2) plus the critic's 14 fold-in gaps, deduplicated 141 → 40. Related pages: Risks ranks what happens if these stay unanswered; Timeline shows which week each answer is needed by.