CCA Cable What You Know About

Cutting corners will be tempting when network infrastructure budgets are restricted. One way to do that is lowering the quality of ethernet cables, to purchase copper clad aluminum (CCA) cables.

Is the CCA cable a good replacement for the network cabling or not? Let’s find out what the CCA cable is first.

CCA cables are copper-clad aluminum wires. They contain Aluminum conductors coated in copper. The explanation from Wikipedia: Copper-clad aluminium wire (CCAW or CCA) is an electrical conductor composed of an inner aluminium core and outer copper cladding.

So the cost of CCA cables must be lower than the pure copper cables. The standard of IEC(International Electrotechnical Commission) or CENELEC(European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization) does not permit to use the CCA cables in the network cabling. And for the CAT5e and CAT6 specifications, the must use copper conductors but CCA cables.

This material CCA will cause more packets of data lost because it has higher attenuation properties than pure copper cable. A lower tensile strength will also damage the data transmission. You have to worry about the breaking when pulling.

Therefore, you must read the specifications carefully when you purchase and use CCA cables.

And you may know more from our another post: CCA Cables, Why Should Stay Away ?