Counterfeit currency, travel papers, and professional certifications are almost as old as the official paperwork or coinage that counterfeiters are attempting to duplicate. Unfortunately for the safety and reliability of Ethernet and other data communication, counterfeit cabling is now a growing trend. As certified cabling with high performance flammability ratings, such as Category 5E or CMP/Plenum rated Ethernet cable, comes at a small premium, some nefarious parties have decided that risking the safety and wellbeing of people working or living in buildings with inferior rated and counterfeit cables is a small price to pay for padding their pockets.
The safety ratings on cabling exist to ensure a safety level for occupants of a building, often in case of disasters such as fire. During a building fire, for instance, toxic smoke from cabling that isn’t rated for the location that it is installed may travel throughout a burning structure and may ultimately make rescue and firefighting efforts more dangerous as well as ultimately costing lives. These facts don’t seem to deter cable counterfeiters, who are more than willing to use a variety of methods to lower the cost of cable products while sacrificing safety and performance. More than this, many counterfeiters are just falsely representing their cable’s capabilities, they are also branding the cables as if they came from a reputable supplier.
Some of the ways that counterfeit cable manufacturers cut the cost of cable is to skimp on pure copper and instead use copper-clad steel or copper-clad aluminum, which aren’t approved for high-speed networks. Other counterfeiters will also use inferior and lower cost plating techniques that result in less-corrosion resistant contacts, as well as jacketing material that may look like CMP/CMR rated cabling but wouldn’t stand up to the NEC code. Many counterfeiters will also counterfeit the conformance or electrical performance testing presented with their cables, often sending a “golden sample” to dupe potential buyers into trusting their false claims.
The biggest strength these counterfeiters have is that buyers are often accepting the lowest bids presented, without properly vetting or establishing a quality control system to ensure the quality of the cables they are purchasing. This kind of behavior hurts honest manufacturers, building owners, installers, and building occupants alike.
Learn more about how to identify counterfeit cables and prevent unfortunate installation issues with an
L-com contributed article, “Seven Deadly Counterfeit Cable Sins”, at ConnectorSupplier.com.
