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Review on VIVO 500ft Cat5e Ethernet Cable CABLE-V002 - Grey Bulk Wire, UTP Pull Box by Sean Carter

Revainrating 1 out of 5

CAT5e must be pure copper!

This product description is misleading and may be false advertising. You cannot call a cable that is not pure copper a CAT5e cable. PERIOD. Bought 3 of them and thought wow good price really good price if it was a real product. Return 2 unused cable boxes. Forced to leave the 3rd box I made 50ft cables out of. The Dangers of Using CCA Cables The performance and safety of CCA cables is fundamentally different. In fact, aluminum network cables violate the TIA and IEC standards for Cat5e and Cat6 cables. Aluminum patch cords, often referred to as CCA or CCE (for Copper Clad Ethernet), have higher attenuation than pure copper cables. This results in more data loss as the packets have to be retransmitted. As more data is retransmitted, your network becomes slower. Plus, each foot of cable you use exacerbates these problems. The longer the cable, the poorer the performance. Is network performance degradation worth saving pennies? CCA cables also have 55% higher DC resistance. This increases the amount of energy that is converted to heat and reduces the amount of energy that can be transferred. This problem makes them unsuitable for Power over Ethernet (PoE). These cut corners also affect installers as the aluminum wire causes installation problems. Due to the lower tensile strength, aluminum cables can be damaged under tension. Individual strands can break, rendering the cable unusable, or the entire cable can break. Aluminum also has a smaller bend radius than pure copper cables. This means you can't bend it before it fails. In short, copper-plated wire is more brittle than pure copper wire.

Pros
  • High marks for grip and durability from testers
Cons
  • Not as thick as other options