The Flame Tests Conducted On A Cat6 Plenum CableFor a 1000BaseT gigabit network requiring multimedia capability, the best cost-effective cable that you can use is the CAT6 plenum cable constructed from solid copper conductor. This is because a CAT6 plenum cable provides you double the bandwidth of a CAT5e plenum cable. Then also, the CAT5e plenum cable cannot be used over and above 100BaseT networks. Moreover, the plenum cable has the highest level protection against flames and smoke that the NEC (National Electrical Code) can provide to you. It is important that a plenum cable have this protection. This is because it is routed through the air conditioning duct in your office building. The duct provides fuel to fire because oxygen-rich air circulates through the duct. In view of this danger, ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Air Conditioning, and Refrigeration Engineers) requires that any materials that are used in the duct are fire and smoke resistant. The plenum cable meets this requirement as manufacturers of the cable have to mandatorily ensure that the cable meets the NFPA (National Fire Protection Association) 262 or the CSA (Canadian Standards Association) FT7 flame protection standard. The plenum cable manufacturers are required to submit samples of the cables manufactured by them. Then these samples are tested for flame protection by either CSA or UL (Underwriters Laboratories) under the requisite standards. In case the cable samples fail under the flame and smoke test, the entire batch of cables made by the concerned manufacturer get rejected. Moreover, a test certificate issued by UL or CSA has a specified validity. Thereafter, the manufacturer is required to submit fresh cables manufactured by them for fresh tests to extend the validity of the test certificates. This cycle continues unabated. So you can rest assured that the plenum cable that you will procure necessarily has the certified flame protection under actual conditions of fire hazard. During the flame protection tests, a CAT 6 plenum cable also undergoes smoke emission tests under fire. The level of smoke emitted by a plenum cable is then measured using standardized calibrated smoke detection equipment and compared against the smoke level allowed by the standard. In case a plenum cable sample fails the test, the entire lot of plenum cables in the batch is rejected. Normally plenum cables do not fail the smoke test because plenum cable manufacturers use Teflon Flamarrest composite insulation over the cable. The material produces low-smoke under fire that is not sufficient to cause death of humans due to asphyxiation under fire hazard. Using a CAT6 plenum cable made using fiber optic technology definitely can give you better data throughput. Moreover, it can also be used under water too which a similar cable made using solid copper conductor cannot, but the cost factor is mainly prohibitive. |