Comtran Cable recently announced that because of improved geometric engineering, the company has been able to reduce the size of two of its highest-performing unshielded twisted-pair cables. Comtran’s Category 6 cable as well as its enhanced Category 6 cable (which it dubs Cat 6e and tests to 550 MHz) have been reduced in outside diameter.
The company explains: “The improved design has allowed Comtran to remove the tape separator in the Cat 6 cable completely, as well as replace the crossweb from the Cat 6e 550MHz cable with a small separator tape.” The Cat 6e 550MHz cable is pictured at the bottom of this story.
Comtran continued, “The new designs result in a more powerful cable with increased headroom and bandwidth but with a smaller cable OD. These advancements provide savings to the end user by allowing more cables to fit into conduit or cable trays than before. It also reduces the connection time as there is no clumsy crossweb to be removed during installation.”
Both cables are made with 23-AWG solid bare copper conductors. The plenum (CMP) rated Category 6 cable now has an outside diameter of 0.190 inches and the riser (CMR) rated Category 6 has a 0.200-inch OD. The Cat 6e 550MHz plenum-rated cable now has a 0.200-inch OD and the riser-rated version has a 0.215-inch OD.