Cat6 certification question
 

One of the guys on this engagement that I am working on insists that a Cat6 drop cannot be certified if there is only one drop to a location. He insists that there must be two drops terminated in the same box for it to be able to be certified. This was new to me. But, I will admit that I don't know everything. (Don't tell my wife.)

I've been all over the TIA 568 specs and can't find anything to support his position.

Is he correct? If so, can you point me to some supporting documentation.

Thanks,

Paul

Never heard of the two drop thing.

Category 6 cable - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Define Certified...

I can have a single 3 foot long Cat6 cable that's certified. All I'm certifying is it meets the specifications for category6.

Never heard of the two drop thing as each cable end to end is certified including any cross connects or patches.

Sounds like he wants to charge you for an extra drop

If I remember correctly there are limits to how short and how long the run can be.

Also no 90 degree bends (think loops and sweeps) no running parrallel with electric. If you do, I think it has to be 24 inches away.

The "stickout" or the ammount of twisted pair showing at the termination ends has to be the absolute minimum while maintaing the twist.

From memory tia568 has more to do with wiring configuration. Such as 568a and 568b where the latter is more common.

I havent done this kind of work in a long time since the construction industry took a nose dive but I am bicsi certified and was a systems engineer for a company that installed many cat6 wiring systems.

For it to be truly certified the run must pass a test by a machine that checks the length, data speed, noise etc.

Hope this helps

I'm no expert on this topic, but I have installed cable and for us certification meant getting a pass from the Fluke tester. Checks for length, loss, cross-talk, and a bunch of other stuff I don't understand. I don't see how two drops could be a requirement. Keep in mind... I HAVE been wrong before!

Maybe he's thinking token ring and terminators ;)

Thanks to everyone for their help. The closest thing I could find online about this is Copper cable certification. That link provides no indication that multiple drops are required.

I did try to hunt down the full ANSI/TIA/EIA-568-B.1 standard online. They standard does define the tests and procedures. But, they don't make it freely available. They will sell me a copy of the specs for $200 though.

Paul,
He may be referring to this from strictly a "best practices" or "standard" that BICSI adheres to.


6.3.4. Description of Grade 2

Grade 2 wiring supports advanced telecommunications applications such as high-speed Local Area
Networks (LANs), multimedia, Internet etc and is recommended for a “Smart House”.

The basic requirements for Grade 2 residential cabling systems are summarized in the Table 2.


Feature


Description

Supported Services: Telephone, fax, modem;
Satellite TV;
Cable and Antenna Television;
Data (up to 1000 Mbit/s with Category 5E cabling,
up to 10Gbit/s with Category 6 cabling*).
Video monitoring;
Video intercom and teleconferencing;
Other multimedia applications.

*-10GBit/s based on IEEE standards no yet
approved at the time of this publication VCR , DVD
and laser disc output distribution;


Recognized Cable Types: Category 5E (CAT5E) 4-pair UTP cable and
components;
Category 6 (CAT6) 4-pair UTP cable and
components;
75-Ohm RG-6 coaxial cable and components.
75-Ohm RG59 coaxial cable for closed-circuit
television (CCTV, commonly referred to as security
video) only;
Fiber optic cables and components (50/125µm;
62.5/125µm multimode as well as singlemode)


Topology:


Star.


Minimum requirements per outlet location: 2 x 4-pair Category 5E UTP cable
(Category 6 recommended);
2 x 75-Ohm RG-6 coaxial cable;
1 x 2-fiber optical fiber cable (optional).


Table 2 Features of Grade 2 Wiring

Look at cabledesign.com for more info

Certification of cable is done with a Tester the likes of Fluke or WaveTech to ensure headroom and other things already mentioned by others.

Hope this helps a little