[ale] OT: GigE Copper specs

[Greg Freemyer]

On Wed, 2004-04-07 at 14:43, griffisb at bellsouth.net wrote:
> Hey all, had an off-topic question about Gigabit Ethernet specs. Is it supported on Cat 5 cable, patch panels and patch cords - or is Cat5e or better required. Distance is 100 meters, correct?
> 
> I'm seeing a lot of errors on some GigE ports at work, and beleive it to be infrasture-related.
> 
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I don't know the details, but I do know that patch panel punch down
techniques that work for 100 Mbit don't work for GigE.

For instance, with 100 Mbit it was not unusual to unwind several inches
of individual wires near the punch downs.

With GigE, much tighter tolerances are needed for maintaining the
twisted pairs all the way to the punch down.  (For some reason I'm
thinking less than 6 inches of untwisted cable cummulative over the
end-to-end connection.  If you are using multiple punch downs, then it
adds up quickly.)

So, if you are doing punch downs (even if you have all GigE acceptable
components) it is easy to mis-install patch panels, etc.

Greg
-- 
Greg Freemyer