Quick Start Manual

Cabling Guidelines C-1

Appendix C

Cabling Guidelines

This appendix provides speciﬁcations for cables used for the Model FS516 Fast Ethernet Switch.

Fast Ethernet Cable Guidelines

Fast Ethernet uses UTP cable, as speciﬁed in the IEEE 802.3u standard for 100BASE-TX. The

speciﬁcation requires Category 5 UTP cable consisting of either 2-pair or 4-pair twisted insulated

copper conductors bound in a single plastic sheath. Category 5 cable is certiﬁed up to 100 MHz

bandwidth. 100BASE-TX operation uses one pair of wires for transmission and the other pair for

receiving and for collision detection.

When installing Category 5 UTP cabling, use the following guidelines to ensure that your cables

perform to the following speciﬁcations:

• Certiﬁcation

Make sure that your Category 5 UTP cable has completed the Underwriters Laboratories (UL)

or Electronic Testing Laboratories (ETL) certiﬁcation process.

• Termination method

To minimize crosstalk noise, maintain the twist ratio of the cable up to the point of termina-

tion; untwist at any RJ-45 plug or patch panel should not exceed 0.5 inch (1.5 cm).