Cabling Installation

Cabling shall be installed and dressed neatly, taking care to adhere to minimum cable bend radii for cables. Take particular care not to leave excess optical fiber loops on the floor or in places where they can be damaged. While all transmission parameters are sensitive to transmission discontinuities caused by connector terminations, return loss, and all forms of crosstalk (e.g., near-end crosstalk [NEXT], attenuation-to-crosstalk ratio–far end[ACR–F], previously known as ELFEXT), performance of balanced twisted-pair systems are particularly sensitive to conductor untwisting and other installation practices that disturb pair balance and cause impedance variations.

To prevent these problems, the installer shall adhere to the following practices:

• Remove only as much cable jacket as is required for termination and trimming.
• Follow the manufacturer’s instructions for mounting, termination, and cable management.
• Minimize the amount of untwisting in a pair as a result of termination to connecting hardware. For untwisting cabling, maintain pair twists as close as possible to the termination point; the amount of untwisting must not exceed 13 mm (0.5 in) for Category 5e and higher cables.