What is Stranded Cable?

Stranded cable is a type of cable where the wires inside the cables are made up of multiple smaller wires constructed together. Instead of one solid copper wire like solid cable, stranded cable has multiple copper strands that form one wire. You can often see stranded cable also be referred to as stranded wire.

Stranded wires give an ethernet cable more flexibility during installation. You need more flexibility with your cable in tight areas such as workstations, NIC, between outlets, patch panels, hubs and inside mounted racks or networking box enclosures. The flex also protects your cable from breaking the wires inside which can impact performance.

Stranded cable is going to be the type you see in majority of patch cords. You will often see these cables have a (CM) fire rating. Because of its flex and performance in short runs stranded cable is ideal for the patch cord type. With Infinity Cable Products you have the ability to purchase pre made patch cords that are already terminated. Stranded cable can also come in bulk lengths such as 1000 feet giving you the customization to create your own custom runs and patch cords.  

It is important to mention here that stranded cable has higher attenuation and is not recommended for longer runs. That is why they should be kept to a shorter length.

Knowing what is stranded cable will help when deciding what category cable to choose. Now that we know that stranded cable should be kept short and can be flexible in tight areas and around corners we want to then decide which category to choose. Stranded cable will come in multiple categories such as Cat5e, Cat6 and Cat6A. The types of each of these categories can vary from unshielded to shielded. This factor depends on the surroundings environment.

Choosing the right cable is important for your installation so we hope this article helped! For some additional information on stranded cable: