Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
FIGURE 9.6
User cord.
doubt. Compatibility with work area electrical cord colors is desirable for user
cords. Many colors are available, but customary colors of beige (or ivory), gray, and
black are commonly available for user cords.
Screened (ScTP) user cord construction and performance are described in
Chapter 8 under “Screened (ScTP) Patch Cords.”
Category
User cords have the same performance category designations as the other portions
of the horizontal cabling system. However, since the 8-pin modular cords are very
similar to nonrated telephone cords, you should be certain that the cords you use
are certified to at least Category 3 or 5e levels, as appropriate. Cables are often
called “data grade” by suppliers. This is an older classification system that simply
indicates that the cables offer a little higher performance than “telephone grade”
cables. Unfortunately, you need to know exactly how much better the performance
will be, so insist on the proper certification of Category 3, 5e, or 6, as needed.
Of course, if you are actually connecting telephone hardware, which is cer-
tainly permitted by the “universal telecommunications cabling,” then telephone-
grade user cables are adequate. However, they do not actually meet the requirements
of the TIA and other standards and may eventually get mixed in with the high-per-
formance categorized cables.
User cords should be marked with the rated category of operation (Fig. 9.7).
The proper marking is “Category
n
” (
n
= 3, 5e, or 6), “Cat
n
,” or a letter “C” with
