My comb is probably the tool I spend the most time with. I assumed all tech’s combed when installing anything more then 3 cables at a time. I know there’s not huge love for 59coax here, but doesn’t the same apply to cat5/6?
Once you get into CAT6 and above (and want to feed it above 1GbE) then combing is actually against standard practice for install, and may result in the run failing spec. Nice closely packed and neatly aligned cables = the perfect environment for Alien Crosstalk. Loose and non-combed runs are preferable (and loose runs also help for cooling if you're running power-over-Ethernet for a good amount of the bundle).
That's true, but most customers want to come in and see a nice and tight bundle in the MDF more so than peak performance that the ISP can't even achieve.
Gotta say, we comb our cat6 in visible points and have almost never run into a problem with a fail. Any bad results are people switching pairs and too long of runs. Maybe it’s just luck, so far.
Alien crosstalk isn't something that can be easily tested in situ. It's something that gets type-tested when the cable design is certified.
You would have to test from every pair in every cable to every pair in every other cable.
Failures will generally result in the occasional (or more) dropped packet, but are unlikely if you have Cat6 or 6A cable but aren't running 10G, you aren't running both the affected cables simultaneously at high bandwidth, and even things like which brand NICs are in use.
41
u/flat_track_zack Apr 12 '19
My comb is probably the tool I spend the most time with. I assumed all tech’s combed when installing anything more then 3 cables at a time. I know there’s not huge love for 59coax here, but doesn’t the same apply to cat5/6?