Industrial > Cabling & Infrastructure

Channel solution. You hear the term a lot these days to describe complete copper or fiber cabling systems. But what exactly is a channel solution and what are its benefits?

A definition.
A channel solution is a cabling system from the data center to the desktop where every cable, jack, and patch panel is designed to work together and give you consistent end-to-end performance when compared with the EIA/TIA requirements.

Its benefits.
A channel solution is beneficial because you have some assurance that your cabling components will perform as specified. Without that assurance, one part may not be doing its job, so your entire system may not be performing up to standard, which is a problem — especially if you rely on bandwidth-heavy links for video and voice.

What to look for.
There are a lot of channel solutions advertised on the Internet and elsewhere. So what exactly should you be looking for?

For one, make sure it’s a fully tested, guaranteed channel solution. The facts show an inferior cabling system can cause up to 70 percent of network downtime — even though it usually represents only 5 percent of an initial network investment. So don’t risk widespread failure by skimping on a system that doesn’t offer guaranteed channel performance. You need to make sure the products are engineered to meet or go beyond the key measurements for CAT5e or CAT6 performance.

And, sure, they may be designed to work together, but does the supplier absolutely guarantee how well they perform as part of a channel — end to end? Don’t just rely on what the supplier says. They may claim their products meet CAT5e or CAT6 requirements, but the proof is in the performance. Start by asking if the channel solution is independently tested and certified by a reputable third party. There are a lot of suppliers out there who don’t have the trademarked ETL approval logo, for example.

What ETL Verified means.
The ETL logo certifies that a channel solution has been found to be in compliance with recognized standards.

But some manufacturers, like Black Box, actually go farther than others in the certification process. Our GigaBase® CAT5e and GigaTrue® CAT6 Channel Solutions are actually “ETL Verified.” For a manufacturer like Black Box to claim ETL Verification, the company has to let the testing lab periodically visit its warehouse, randomly pick the channel solution products from stock, and randomly test them to see how they actually work together in a channel.

The exact type of testing performed for the verification is passive testing, which involves sending data through the channel to not only see how the products compare with the requirements in the CAT5e and CAT6 specifications but also to pinpoint how much headroom the channel solution provides above the specifications. In the lab‘s testing of Black Box’s GigaBase and GigaTrue Channel Solutions, the result is the same every time: Both channel solutions pass with zero errors, and testing confirms that there’s ample headroom for application assurance.

And that’s why Black Box can say that its ETL Verified cabling, jacks, and other channel components will serve you well both now and in the future—guaranteed.

Straight-pinned cable has the most common type of pinning. The send and receive pairs are wired straight-through on either end of the cable.

Crossover cable is generally used for peer-to-peer connections. The send and receive pairs are crossed between Connector A to Connector B on either end of the cable.

Solid-conductor cable is designed for backbone and horizontal cable runs. Use it for runs between two wiring closets or from the wiring closet to a wallplate. Solid cable shouldn’t be bent, flexed, or twisted repeatedly. Its attenuation is lower than that of stranded-conductor cable.

Stranded cable is for use in shorter runs between network interface cards (NICs) and wallplates or between concentrators and patch panels, hubs, and other rackmounted equipment. Stranded-conductor cable is much more flexible than solid-core cable. However, attenuation is higher in stranded-conductor cable, so the total length of stranded cable in your system should be kept to a minimum to reduce signal degradation.

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.

Don’t worry. Black Box experts are ready 24 hours a day to answer your questions. When you click on “Talk to a Tech,” you’ll be talking to a trained expert in seconds. If you need help installing a network, or adding an additional drop, contact us.

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. For the latest information, contact our FREE Tech Support.

Twisted-Pair Cable Specifications Comparison
Frequency — CAT5, CAT5e: 100 MHz;
CAT6: 250 MHz;
CAT7 (Proposed): 600 MHz
Attenuation (min. at 100 MHz) — CAT5, CAT5e: 22 dB;
CAT6: 19.8 dB;
CAT7 (Proposed): 20.8 dB
Characteristic Impedance — All: 100 ohms ± 15%
NEXT (min. at 100 MHz) — CAT5: 32.3 dB;
CAT5e: 35.3 dB;
CAT6: 44.3 dB;
CAT7 (Proposed): 62.1 dB
PS-NEXT (min. at 100 MHz) — CAT5: no specification;
CAT5e: 32.3 dB;
CAT6: 42.3 dB;
CAT7 (Proposed): 59.1 dB
ELFEXT (min. at 100 MHz) — CAT5: no specification;
CAT5e: 23.8 dB;
CAT6: 27.8 dB;
CAT7 (Proposed): not yet specified
PS-ELFEXT (min. at 100 MHz) — CAT5: no specification;
CAT5e: 20.8 dB;
CAT6: 24.8 dB;
CAT7 (Proposed): not yet specified
Return Loss (min. at 100 MHz) — CAT5: 16 dB;
CAT5e: 20.1 dB;
CAT6: 20.1 dB;
CAT7 (Proposed): 14.1 dB
Delay Skew (max. per 100 m) — CAT5: no specification;
CAT5e: 45 ns:
CAT6: 45 ns;
CAT7 (Proposed): 20 ns