Glossary

Also called CAT-2. Unshielded twisted pair used for transmission at frequencies up to 4MHz. Used in analog and digital telephone applications. Category 2 cable is not suitable for networking applications. See Chapter 1 for more information. Not a recognized medium by ANSI/TIA-568.C.

Also called CAT-3. Unshielded twisted pair with 100 ohm impedance and electrical characteristics supporting transmission at frequencies up to 16MHz. Used for 10Base-T Ethernet and digital voice applications. Recognized by the ANSI/TIA-568-C standard. See Chapters 1 or 7 for more information.

Also called CAT-4. Unshielded twisted pair with 100 ohm impedance and electrical characteristics supporting transmission at frequencies up to 20MHz. Not used and not supported by the standards. See Chapter 1 for more information.

Also called CAT-5. Unshielded twisted pair with 100 ohm impedance and electrical characteristics supporting transmission at frequencies up to 100MHz. Category 5 is not a recognized cable type for new installations by the ANSI/TIA-568-C standard, but its requirements are included in the standard to support legacy installations of Category 5 cable. See Chapters 1 or 7 for more information.

Also called CAT-5e or Enhanced CAT-5. Recognized in ANSI/TIA-568-C. Category 5e has improved specifications for NEXT, PSNEXT, Return Loss, ACRF (ELFEXT), PSACRF (PS-ELFEXT), and attenuation as compared to Category 5. Like Category 5, it consists of unshielded twisted pair with 100 ohm impedance and electrical characteristics supporting transmission at frequencies up to 100MHz. See Chapters 1 or 7 for more information.

Also called CAT-6. Recognized in ANSI/TIA-568-C, Category 6 supports transmission at frequencies up to 250MHz over 100 ohm twisted pair. See Chapters 1 or 7 for more information.

Also called CAT-6A. Recognized in ANSI/TIA-568-C, Category 6A supports transmission at frequencies up to 500MHz over 100 ohm twisted pair. This is the only category cable required to meet alien crosstalk specifications. See Chapters 1 or 7 for more information.

Consultative Committee for International Radio. Replaced by the International Telecommunications Union

In time division multiplexing (TDM), one pulse at a time is taken from several signals and combined into a single bit stream.

Engineer responsible for the RAN design and site requirements. Documented in the RDS.

Includes all feeders, connections, grounding, MHA, combiners, antennas from the antenna to the final radio equipment (BTS / NodeB) connection.

Centre Conductor: The solid or stranded wire in the middle of the coaxial cable. The conductor diameter is measured by the American Wire Gauge (AWG).

The nominal value central operating wavelength defined by a peak mode measurement where the effective optical power resides.

The average of two wavelengths measured at the half amplitude points of the power spectrum.

The center component of a cable, which serves as an antibuckling element to resist temperature-induced stresses. Sometimes serves as a strength element. The central member is composed of steel, fiberglass, or glassreinforced plastic.