Cabling Verification Qualification and Certification

The cabling involved in your network, surveillance, access control, security, and even electrical systems are the backbone of your home or businesses entire operation. As we always should, we expect our device to work as they’re intended – every time. However, cabling verification and/or certification is a little-known aspect in regards to electrical, communication(s), and data cabling.

What is Cable Verification?

Comparatively to certification and qualification, cable verification is simple in terms of it’s process and purpose. In a nutshell, verifying copper cable consists of the following basic functions:

• Continuity Testing
• Wire Mapping
• Wire Toning
• Wire Length Measurement

In terms of fiber optic cabling, you can verify a cable using a Visual Fault Location (VFL). As it’s name implies, it sends a beam of light through the cable allowing the operator to find break, connectors, and splices. Additionally, a Visual Fault Locator can assist in verifying the proper polarity and orientation of a strand within a multi-fiber connector.

All-in-all, cable verification is the most-suited choice for troubleshooting and finding cabling issues. In and of itself, verification won’t show a cables actual ability to support the application in which it is intended to perform. Above-all, simply verifying a cable won’t ensure that the cable meets the standards compliance to be covered under the cable’s manufacturer warranty.

What is Cable Certification?

You may have heard at some point in your journey this far of two acronyms: TIA, and ISO. Let’s dive in:

The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA), which is accredited by the American Nation Standards Institute (ANSI), represents nearly 400 companies to develop voluntary, consensus-based industry standards for plethora of Information and Communication (ICT) products.

From private radio equipment, cellular (4G, 5G, etc.) towers, data terminals, satellites, phone equipment, datacenters, vehicle telematics, healthcare ICT, IoT/M2M, to smart utility networks, the TIA develops guidelines for manufacturers to incorporate.

For brevity’s sake, we’ll stick to discussing copper telecommunications/data cabling in this section.

ANSI/TIA-568 A B

When it comes to data cabling in North America (USA), there are two commonly-used schemes used to terminate a standard ethernet cable, T568A or T568B. Not only do these two standards help ensure both ends of the cable are terminated in the same order, but there are various technical reasons as well. Let’s begin by taking a look at what each “pair” represents and why their are 4 pairs (or 8-total pairs) of cable in a standard category (CAT) cable.

Ethernet Cable Pairs

You’ll notice there are various colors of wire: Orange, Orange/White, Green, Green/White, Blue, Blue/White, Brown, and Brown/White. Now, let’s separate these eight colors down into only four primary colors: Orange, Green, Blue, and Brown. Each primary cable/color has a secondary, or “tracer” cable – which are the “striped” cables.

Ethernet Cable Pins and Their Function

Now, the exact cable manufacturer details will vary between the various types of category cable ratings (CAT3, CAT4, CAT5, CAT5/e, CAT6/e, etc.), their basic functions remain the same in order for the various types to be used interchangeably. Let’s take a look at a typical RJ45/Ethernet pinout below:

In terms of fiber optic cabling, you can verify a cable using a Visual Fault Location (VFL). As it’s name implies, it sends a beam of light through the cable allowing the operator to find break, connectors, and splices. Additionally, a Visual Fault Locator can assist in verifying the proper polarity and orientation of a strand within a multi-fiber connector.

All-in-all, cable verification is the most-suited choice for troubleshooting and finding cabling issues. In and of itself, verification won’t show a cables actual ability to support the application in which it is intended to perform. Above-all, simply verifying a cable won’t ensure that the cable meets the standards compliance to be covered under the cable’s manufacturer warranty.

What is Cable Qualification?

When it comes to choosing, installing, and using a cable, qualification is where your dollars and cents matter.

Qualification testing not only includes verification, but it also includes testing the cable to meet the specific signal demands of it’s underlying certification demands. For example, in order for a Category cable to support Gigabit (1000Mbps) speeds, the underlying copper, it’s orientation, jacketing, shielding, and separation media must be able to cohesively work together in order to provide the appropriate speed, bandwidth, and EMI protections necessary.

Comparing Category Cables

Not all cable is the same.

Let’s take a closer look at the differences between CAT6, CAT6e, and CAT6A cable.

CAT6 – Basic Definition

TIA’s CAT Standard set the bar for every CAT6 cable manufactured and their connectivity. In a nutshell, CAT6 cable can be defined by the following:

• Consists of four pairs of copper wires, which are utilized for data transfer.
• Provides bandwidth of 250 MHz with speeds of up-to 10Gbps.
• Can reach a length of 100m (328 feet).
• Provides an enhanced level of crosstalk and attenuation protection over any previous twisted-pair cable ratings.
• Commonly used in ethernet 10BaseT, 100Base-T, 1000Base-T, and 10GBase-T networks.

What’s All This Talk of “Bandwidth”?

If you’re not familiar with the term “Bandwidth”, the best way to describe it would explaining the differences in capacity of a rural road versus a 6-lane freeway.

In terms of cable, a rural road could be likened to a CAT6 cable rated at 500 MHz. See the following image.

Now, if we bump that rating up to 550 Mhz, here’s the result:

We just doubled the traffic! Let’s take it a step further…

As you can see, at 600Mhz+ a CAT6A cable can handle most-anything (emphasis on the most-anything) an office might throw at it. The following chart shows a side-by-side comparison between CAT6, CAT6e, and CAT6A cable.