In network technology, a so-called patch field is usually found in larger installations. Various network cables are plugged into the front and lead to routers, switches, firewalls and other network components.

Orange network installation cables lead into the back and emerge from the floor, wall or ceiling behind the network cabinet in which such patch panels are installed.

Network installation cable can be compared, for example, with the rigid sheathed cables in electrical engineering, which come from the individual rooms of a house and converge in the meter cabinet. Network installation cable is also rigid and therefore susceptible to breakage. It has bending radii of 35 .. 70 mm, which requires laying in cable ducts with a minimum depth of around 70 mm. This is not a problem in an industrial/commercial environment, especially since installation is usually carried out in false floors or ceilings, as well as parapet channels.

In private and smaller commercial environments - up to around two dozen network devices to be connected, such as computers, printers, scanners, access points - etc., you can easily do without the use of a patch panel. In addition, people don't like to see cables, especially in living rooms, so they hide them in equally inconspicuous, thin cable ducts, behind skirting boards, in the door area under appropriate passage profiles. Since rigid network installation cables are impractical here, they are used flexible network cable, so-called patch cables, with molded plugs. This is less sensitive to the risk of breakage and should not be kinked, but can be laid in narrow radii, i.e. in cable ducts that are only 15 mm deep.

In terms of transmission technology, assuming qualitative comparability, there is no difference in the performance of the two types of cable.

Install installation cable

While pre-assembled network cables do not require any installation, plug in and you're done, installation cables do not have any molded plugs. It comes on large cable rolls and is laid like the sheathed cable mentioned above. In the shell you can see the ends dangling around, waiting to be connected to junction boxes or the patch panel.

Network installation cable is installed using a special lay-up tool placed and pressed into the cutting contacts of the support block of a junction box or inside a patch panel. Protruding wires are automatically cut off flush in one operation,

Depending on the standard used (EIA/TIA 568A / 568B, IEC, REA or DIN 47.100), it is important to ensure that the color-coded eight individual wires of the cable are correctly assigned to the eight color-coded connection terminals. This standard must be maintained throughout the entire installation, including retrofits. In Europe, cabling is preferred according to EIA/TIA 568A.

Which standard is ultimately used is electrically irrelevant. The only thing that matters is that the same wire coding always prevails on all connections.

If both ends are properly connected in this way, the wire assignment, short circuit or loose contact is checked using a network tester. A test report ultimately remains with the client.