Apparently the company had encountered some issues at a recent contract/installation and could we possibly attend a meeting……we didn’t give it a second thought!!!!!
So here is the back story……….
The Midlands based contractor, was informed by a customer that they had purchased some very low cost twisted-pair category rated cable that was provided by the customer for a modest sized installation. So far so good you might think!! Think again………the installation company’s site engineer wasn’t immediately suspicious, as it assumed that the cable had been supplied from a reputable industry distributor. That soon changed when it came time to install the cable.
The site engineer explained to me “Our guys promptly arrived on site to start the preparatory work; things like marking out the outlet positions; looking at the assured pathway and ensuring that redundant cabling was removed as necessary etc”……. “One of the guys took a look at the boxes of customer supplied cable. He noticed that it was not an immediately recognised brand. Given that the customer was asking for a warranty certificate”, we took a closer look at these boxes of Cat6 cable”.
Upon closer scrutiny the brand was unknown. There were UL numbers and a NVP value printed on the side of the box. Apart from that, there were no other clues. After a bit more research and discussion with the customer, it suddenly became apparent that the cable was a CCA cable - constructed with copper clad aluminium conductors.
Informing the customer that the cable they were supplying was not a category rated/ISO class cable, was tricky!!” Our contractor would not be able to issue a warranty. At first the customer was not convinced, and took the view that the apparently authentic UL mark meant that the cable was indeed category rated cable.
Our advice
It wasn’t until we were brought in to the discussion that we were able to prove that the cable was in fact, a Chinese cable bought from a national electrical wholesaler. I dug out several recent articles about copper clad aluminium cable from the CCCA in the US, and another online article from a different source suggesting that the brand in question was under investigation for UL fraud in the USA. I presented this information to the customer, and once it reached director level in the company, the customer rightly decided not to use the cable they had purchased.
The customer had bought the non-compliant cable, they couldn’t use it and they can’t sell it. They ultimately have lost £15,000. Thankfully, the contractor backed up by us, installed specified cable/modules/panels etc., from a reputable manufacturer.
All’s well the ends well as the warranty is now in place,”
My advice is this: get properly trained - do not accept any CCA or CCC cable substitutes – be aware that this cable will not be able to pass a category/ISO transmission characteristic test and is also likely to be non-fire rated.
Total Comms Training
