Greetings,
With all the cable out there today, whenever I do a job I certify it.
What I found was if I use Remee cat 5e made in the states the runs certify at Cat 6 or just under out around 220 feet. Another mfr Syston barely certified 5e at 104 feet. My price on both boxes was around $20 difference. $134 for Syston cat 5e plenum and $154 for the plenum 5e Remee.

We had cable that wouldn't certify better then Cat4 years ago. It was from a reputable manufacturer and they came out and investigated. Turns out they had a problem in the factory and the cable was wrapped too tightly or pulled too tightly, but in any event it was hosed.

With cable manufactured overseas I imagine there's very little - if any - quality control.

In my situation, the manufacturer replaced all the cable, but not the labor to pull it out and reinstall it. How did you do as far as getting your money back?

Sam

Fortunately I only guarenteed Cat 5e speed, so I was o.k.. I did tell my vendor that the Syston cable was sub par. I told my other vendor I will continue to buy Remee from him. Remee is manufactured in upstate N.Y. I would highly recommend you give it a try. No I don't have a stake in it, just a recommendation.

Never heard of either brand. I've settled on Hitachi Cable. Last few boxes were made in New Hampshire.

Thanks I will look into that brand as well as I believe Olympia is manufactured in the US.

An electronics retailer that I sometimes visit here in the metro Boston area sells Remee cabling. I can't say that I've purchased any, but, he has shelves of pull boxes, spools and reels.

I never heard of either brand. I personally use ICC cable products as their prices are good and they offer a limited Lifetime warranty on all of their products and if you take their training they will warranty the labor too.

I'll use Berk-Tek or General Cable when the client requires it.

Remmee, General Cable, Commscope, Nordx/CDT, Superior/Essex, Berk-Tek and Hitachi/Manchester are made in USA. Some of ICC's products are made in USA, but most are not.

Any brand must have a hologram label on the package certifying UL or other approved testing agencies' acceptance of the product. You won't find these on most offshore cable. That's your first sign. If it's not listed, it's not legal to install.

Some Commscope cabling is made in China. A few years ago, I discovered that riser rated product was no longer made domestically. That along with the fact that Commscope's 4-pair CAT3 cable is now CAT5 cable that fails certification testing.

A lot of cable manufacturers are using the ETL mark instead of UL mark as it is faster and cheaper to get. I personally feel the ETL is not on the same level as the UL even though they claim to be.

I've noticed that with some other manufacturers, Paul. I suspect that this is cable that failed factory testing, the process was set up incorrectly, or anything else that would cause it to not meet specs. Since CAT5 is the new norm, I suspect that they just sell their products that fail to meet this spec as CAT3.

Personally, I hate working with CAT5 or above for voice use, but the reality is, voice and data are now the same by industry standards, so we have to adapt. CAT4 and above wasn't ever meant to be used with voice systems.

There aren't a lot of suppliers that stock CAT3 cable in the four pair size anymore, at least not in large quantities. A few of our suppliers offer to sell us CAT5E for the same price as CAT3 just to avoid the hassle of a special order from the factory.

Hey Ed!

The failed CAT5 cables are fine if termination is on 110, BIX or Krone hardware. It becomes a bit of a hassle when punching the stuff down on 66 blocks.

I still have some boxes of old style Systimax CAT3 cables...as well as most of the AT&T shielded 2-pair that I bought from you years ago. I'm going to religate them to reserve status....not that I'm doing much in the way of cabling at this point.

Very interesting, the Remee cable that certified as Cat 6 or better at around 225 feet bears the ETL mark and the Syston that barely cracked 5e at 104 feet carries the UL plus hologram stamp. Maybe Just a bad box? The Syston stuff is definitely off shore stuff according to my distributor and Remee is US made.

ADI sells Remee and Honeywell brand cable - I have used both without any issues. Just did a small Cat 6 plenum job, all Honeywell cable and ICC jacks/panel.

UL or ETL testing has NOTHING to do with whether the cable meets any manufacturers certification specification. The listing is only to determine compliance with voltage breakdown between conductors(150 volts for CL2 or CM cable) and that the cable meets smoke emission and flame spread for the particular type of cable (general purpose- CM, riser- CMR or plenum- CMP).

-Hal

Thanks Hal, Just rolling with what another poster said. So basically all the ETL or UL says for what ever the rating is. Is a burn and emission rating. Not a speed rating.

The only people that I figure would give a "Speed rating" to would be the EIA/TIA and possibly BICSI.

Sam

All the NEC cares about is the protection of life and property. They couldn't give a rat's patoot whether your CAT5e passes data, only that it doesn't harm anybody or burn the building down.

-Hal

Is everyone ready for the new LP communications cable and all of the NEC that will go with it?

Experiencing EMI on data cable can be very common these days with the higher speeds that are being pushed through the cabling. Run a data cable over the dimmers for several LED lights and it will cause EMI on the cable most of the time . Even the high-end equipment will be affected by it. I've had to fix this problem way to many times lately

We use West Penn Wire. Their CAT 5E certifies as CAT 6 out to 300 feet. We only use CAT 6 anymore. I just got tired of carrying several spools of the different cables, so everyone in the company only carries CAT 6 Plenum.

Hal is correct. The UL ratings only address conformance to voltage breakdown and smoke emissions when burning. The NEC is a Life Safety code and there is no specifications for BERT or speed compliance.

IEEE makes specification on data carrying bandwidth and the TIA/EIA usually follows the IEEE specifications.

Rcaman

We still run a lot of cat 5e mostly clients that don't want to mix 5e and 6 in their space. We tried to tell them if we run 6 now it will cost less when we replace the 5e. The answer is usually we will probably move or 7 will be out by then.

CAT 7, which has not been adopted by TIA/EIA is already a standard. But, I doubt if anyone has installed it.

The next category cable is CAT 8. That WILL be adopted by TIA/EIA

Rcaman

They will never have reason in their lifetime to replace the 5e. That is unless some IT weenie convinces them that the have to.

-Hal

But CAT 8 is only meant for the data centers according to the various bodies involved in its creation.

I don't know of anyone that makes anything for CAT 7 here in the states since it's not a recognized standard here.

Despite its intended use as data center cabling, I suspect that CAT 8 will find its way into premises installations.

True, but it does have length limits