When you plan to deploy your network by using bulk Ethernet cable, you will find there are always various types of bulk Ethernet cables available on the market. And cables provided by different vendors vary in quality. There is no doubt that the quality of bulk Ethernet cable have an influence on the network performance. During the selection, how to distinguish a good Ethernet cable from a bad one is critical, which can also directly embody the ability of an engineer. Then, how to make sure that bulk Ethernet cables used in your network are of good quality? This article aims to share some tips with you.
Testing the data transmission rate is one of the most effective methods to identify the quality of Ethernet cables. It is recommended that you connect two computers directly to do the test. But there may be some other factors that can affect the data transmission rate of the bulk Ethernet cable, such as the configuration of computer itself, the network card, RJ45 connector and so on. Hence, you should use machines with high configuration to reduce the external factors on the data transmission rate of the bulk Ethernet cable to a minimum. In this way, the result of test will be accurate.
Ethernet cables of good quality are as flexible as possible, because the convenience of cabling has been taken into account at design time. It is easy to bend them in any ways and they are less likely to be broken easily. However, on the current market, there are some inferior bulk Ethernet cables which are mixed with other cheap metal components. The texture of such bulk Ethernet cables is no longer so soft and the data transmission rate becomes slower. In the process of cabling, if you bend the bulk Ethernet cable repeatedly, the copper wires inside the cable may be broken. While if the cable is too soft, then you should also note that it may be a fake and shoddy product.
In general, the materials composed of bulk Ethernet cable must be characterized with fire resistance, otherwise there is a fire, it will suffer heavy losses. Therefore, when choosing the bulk Ethernet cable, it is necessary to check the flammability of the cable jacket. Take cat5e cable 305m for example. In the test, you can use scissor to cut off about 2 cm length of its cable jacket, then burn it with a lighter. Under the condition of fire, cable jacket of good quality will gradually melt and deform after six seconds, with white smoke, but it will not burn itself up; while if the cable jacket is unable to resist the fire and burns up in less two seconds, with a large amount of black smoke, even though the cat5e cable 305m can provide 1000Mbps data transmission rate, you should give up the choice.
When carrying out cabling, bulk Ethernet cables are highly required to resist the external temperature changes. Not to say they can resist any change in the environment, at least those cables will not become soften under high temperature environment or frost crack under low temperature environment. For the sake of the performance of cable that will not be affected in the high temperature environment, cable jacket of good quality bulk Ethernet cable utilizes the material that can resist high temperature of up to about 50 degrees. And phenomenon like becoming soften or deformation will not occur. Take cat5e cable 305m from Fiberstore for example, its operation temperature range is from -10 degrees to 60 degrees and its installation temperature range is from 0 degree to 50 degrees. To do the test, you can place a short length of its cable jacket next to the stove for a while. And you will find that the cable jacket does not become softer than the normal one, it means that the quality of this cat5e cable 305m is good.
In the actual selection of Ethernet cables, sometimes due to the lack of test environment or conditions, you are not able to test the quality or material of the cable by the methods mentioned above. So what should you do at that time? You might as well observe the identification on the cable jacket. Normally, the regular brands of Ethernet cables have category identification and manufacture trademark on the cable jacket. If there is no identification on the cable jacket, you should be vigilant and try to create conditions to test the cable by following the above methods. Here is a figure of cat5e cable, from which we can clearly see the category identification and some other information about the cable.
It is essential to select Ethernet cables of good quality for your network deployment, and that is the basic requirement to make your network achieve high performance level. As a result, when making a choice among various Ethernet cables, you have to observe carefully, compare more and test more.
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