BackCopper Category Cabling Condensed
Saar here, resident engineer at Myriad Supply. Today I’ll be discussing Copper Cables.
As you know when you yell something your voice travels over the air. So people close to you can hear it well, but as it moves outwards the strength decreases. That is called Signal Attenuation.
Copper is not the best on allowing signals to travel because it has a distance limitation so in order to increase the distance every time the speed requirements go up, they simply make the copper THICKER.
Copper:
Category:
The first item to distinguish copper is the category. Think of this as a level. The higher the number the higher the speed it supports.
This is due to the fact that they increase the amount of copper in each category.
** Cat 7 and Cat 8 are not a TIA standard, so every manufacturer does what he wants.
** Copper Base-T does not yet work on 40000 or 40 Gbps. {In the future it will}
Cat 5 cabling:
As you can see it only supports 10/100, so they need to get replaced frequently.
When they replace it, I recommend:
Cat 6, which supports 1000/10000 if the client is cost efficient. OR
Cat 6a if you are planning to use 10000 mainly, because that will give you the range of 100 meters.
Shielding
The second item is the shielding.
All Copper cables have many twisted pairs in them.
The name you will see floating around is BASE-T = copper twisted pair cables
It is called UTP for Unshielded Twisted Pair
A category CAT cable usually has 4 pairs. Those Pairs are right next to each other. In a pair, the electrons {signal} will flow along the copper. 0 {off}, 1 1 1 1 1 {signal -electric}, 0 0 0 0 , 1{signal-electric}
Every X electrons that flow, there are a few rebels who decide to bounce off to the side of the cable.
They will hit the next twisted pair cable and screw up the signal there.
That is called CROSSTALK – they basically cross the road like the chicken and then talk, which ruins the signal for the other cable.
This will create an error and will require re-transmitting it.
So to prevent crosstalk, we introduce SHIELDING.
You basically take some TIN FOIL
And wrap the twisted pair.
Now when those rebel electrons go flying off to the side, they hit the tin foil and are absorbed into it, which means no more interference or crosstalk.
It’s called an STP- Shielded Twisted Pair.
Screened
Usually the cables in a network will all run in a trough, the floor of a datacenter after they lift it.
Notice how all the cables are bunched up.
This can cause the signals from one cable to HOP to the next cable and mess things up.
The technical name is.
ALIEN CROSSTALK = alien because it comes from the cable next to you who is an Alien.
This is where you may need a cable that is SCREENED
Technically 90% of Screened cables are also Shielded.
The Screen will absorb the rebel electrons and is made up of a mesh so the cable will bend better.
Indoor-Outdoor
Is this cable going for an indoor deployment or an outdoor?
An outdoor one will simply have a slightly thicker jacket that will be colored in black.
This helps against the elements.
Fire Code
The fourth thing is the chemical make-up of the cable. When you are running cable across a room, you will run normal PVC cable . What we have on our site are all normal. When you are running cable from one floor to another, you will use a RISER cable – The RISER cable is more flame retardant, so the fire won’t be able to move between floors. When you are running a cable near the AIR duct of a building by law you must use a PLENUM cable -When this cable burns, it does not emit toxic fumes and is very flame retardant {Teflon like your frying pan} When you are running a Plenum cable in an airplane, train or EUROPE , the cable must be LSZH – this means it has zero Halogen in the plastic.
Technically, the halogen in the plastic cables burns nicely without much smoke, however when the sprinkler system goes off, the mixture of water and Halogen creates harmful vapor
and as you know, most fire related deaths are not from the fire but are usually asphyxiation .
Cable ending.
The last thing is the cover type.
Standard = might come out
Booted – the plastic cover can be pulled back when needed
Molded – can’t come out put when you pull back the cable it might snag and break the clasp
Molded snagless – can’t come out and has the plastic boot to protect the clasp
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Saar Harel is a resident Engineer at Myriad Supply, and has been in the Networking Field for over 20 years. You can check out his Google+ and ask him questions!
