[PLUG-TALK] Plenum-rated ethernet cable

John Jason Jordan johnxj at comcast.net
Tue Mar 30 05:06:29 UTC 2010


On Mon, 29 Mar 2010 21:23:34 -0700
Galen Seitz <galens at seitzassoc.com> dijo:

>John Jason Jordan wrote:
>> On Mon, 29 Mar 2010 20:04:56 -0700
>> Keith Lofstrom <keithl at kl-ic.com> dijo:
>> 
>>> On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 10:35:53AM -0700, Galen Seitz wrote:
>>>> Where are you planning to run this cable?  In the cold air return
>>>> of your heating system?  
>>> No ... making the rest not relevant.  The cable will be running in a
>>> tray of some sort, attached to the house frame, exposed to air.
>>> Thus, an unlimited supply of oxygen to support combustion if it is
>>> possible. The ethernet cable should not act like a fuse in a fire;
>>> some do. Hence, legitimate plenum grade cable is required by the
>>> electrical code.
>> 
>> Ethernet cable carries enough current to overheat and cause a fire?
>
>No, but once lit by an external ignition source, any cable could 
>potentially distribute a fire well beyond the initial source.

I'm still struggling to figure out why ethernet cable is dangerous. Why
would an ethernet cable distribute a fire more quickly or over a greater
distance than other materials? 



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