14/11/2009 by David Slade.

Category 5, 5e, and 6 copper wiring standards

The news on bandwidth
The need for increased bandwidth never ceases—the more you have, the more you need. Applications keep getting more complex, and files keep getting bulkier. It won’t be long before you need to increase the speed of your network.

Because unshielded twisted-pair UTP cable is by far the most common networking cable, let’s take a brief look at where UTP is headed.

The limits of Category 5
Category 5 (CAT5) cabling is good, solid cable for 100-Mbps LANs. The Category 5 standard has been around since 1991, so it’s well established. You’ll find existing Category 5 installations everywhere. What can Category 5 cable do, and what can’t it do?

If you still have a lot of 10-Mbps equipment, CAT5 cabling will serve your needs. It also handles 100-Mbps Fast Ethernet transmissions very well.

But if you’re running up against the performance limits of a 100-Mbps network, you’ll probably want to upgrade at least parts of your system fairly soon to Category 5e (CAT5e) or higher.

Category 5e: the improved Category 5
Category 5e, also known as Enhanced Category 5, or CAT5e, was ratified in 1999. It’s an incremental improvement designed to enable cabling to support full-duplex Fast Ethernet operation and Gigabit Ethernet.

The main differences between CAT5 and CAT5e can be found in the specifications. The performance requirements have been raised slightly in the new standard.

CAT5e has stricter specifications for Power Sum Equal-Level Far-End Crosstalk (PS-ELFEXT), Near-End Crosstalk (NEXT), Attenuation, and Return Loss (RL) than those for CAT5. Like CAT5, CAT5e is a 100-MHz standard, but it has the capacity to handle bandwidth superior to that of CAT5. With these improvements, you can expect problem-free, full-duplex, 4-pair Ethernet transmissions over your CAT5e UTP.

Category 6
The next level in the cabling hierarchy is Category 6 (CAT6) (ANSI/TIA/EIA-568-B.2-1), which was ratified by the TIA/EIA in June 2002. CAT6 provides higher performance than CAT5e and features more stringent specifications for crosstalk and system noise.

The quality of the data transmission depends upon the performance of all the components of the channel. So to transmit according to CAT6 specs, the jacks, patch cables, patch panels, cross-connects, and cabling must all meet CAT6 standards. (The channel includes everything from the wallplate to the wiring closet.) The CAT6 components are tested individually, and they are also tested together for performance. In addition, the standard calls for generic system performance so that CAT6 components from any vendor can be used in the channel.

CAT6 channel transmission requirements should result in a Power-Sum Attenuation-to-Crosstalk Ratio (PS-ACR) that’s greater than or equal to zero at 200 MHz.

In addition, all CAT6 components must be backward compatible with CAT5e, CAT5, and CAT3. If different category components are used with CAT6 components, then the channel will achieve the transmission performance of the lower category. For instance, if CAT6 cable is used with CAT5e jacks, the channel will perform at a CAT5e level.

Industry standards
The advantage of sticking to the industry standards is the knowledge that your cabling will be compatible with standards applications. But the standards are always being improved upon, and it takes time to ratify a new standard. Often, as with CAT6, the final standard may be different from the proposed standard.

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14/11/2009 by David Slade.

Power over Ethernet (PoE).

Powering remote Ethernet devices can be a problem when you need to find an AC power outlet to plug a bulky transformer into. But with Power over Ethernet (PoE) you don’t need a power outlet because your Ethernet device draws power from the same Ethernet UTP cable that connects it to the network. You simplify installation by getting power where you need it with PoE.

What is PoE?
The seemingly universal network connection, CAT5 cable, has another role to play: to provide electrical power as well as data. Power over Ethernet (PoE) was ratified by the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) in June 2000 as the 802.3af-2003 standard. It defines the specifications for the transmission of electrical power over CAT5 data cable.

This standard promotes the delivery of low levels of power—just 13 watts or less—over data lines to PoE devices such as IP telephones, wireless access points, Web cameras, and audio speakers. PoE is also ideal for applications such as video surveillance, building management, retail video kiosks, smart signs, vending machines, and retail point of information systems.

By eliminating the need to install separate outlets for data and power, users can save up to 50% in installation costs.

How does PoE work?
Very simply, CAT5 Ethernet cable consists of four twisted pairs of cable. Only two pairs are used for 10BASE-T and 100BASE-TX Ethernet data transmission; the remaining pairs are available for power. The PoE standard offers two options for using the twisted pairs for power. The first option sends the electrical power through the spare pair. The second option uses the data pairs for both power and data.

The data and power transmissions don’t interfere with each other either. Electricity has a low frequency of 50 - 60 Hz or less, and data transmissions have frequencies that can range from 10 million to 100 million Hz. Because data and electricity are at opposite ends of the frequency spectrum, they can travel over the same cable.

PoE devices
To install Power over Ethernet, you need to add a PoE injector (also known as Power Sourcing Equipment or PSE), to insert DC voltage onto the CAT5 cable. The injector is usually installed near the Ethernet switch and may be a single-port model that inserts power onto only one cable or may be a PoE hub, which inserts power onto multiple cables.

At the other end of the powered CAT5 Ethernet cable, you need a way to get the power from the Ethernet cable and back into a device. Many network devices are now made as PoE-compatible devices that can take power directly from the CAT5 cable. These devices are sometimes also described as active Ethernet compatible.

Additionally, you can power some network devices that aren’t PoE compatible by using a device called a picker or a tap. It “picks” the DC voltage from the CAT5 cable and routes it to the device.

PoE applications and benefits:

• Use one set of twisted-pair wires for both data and low-wattage appliances.
• Save money by eliminating the need to run electrical wiring.
• Easily move an appliance with minimal disruption.
• If your LAN is protected from power failure by a UPS, the PoE devices connected to your LAN are also protected from power failure.
• Supports the addition of end-span, standalone, and mid-span devices.
• As PoE becomes more common, the 8-pin modular connector will become the industry-standard power jack.

Posted in Cat5E, 10BASE-T, 802.3af-2003, Power over Ethernet (PoE), 100BASE-TX | Print | No Comments »