CAT5 Jacket Colors

[RandyVSP]

Hello group:

I know somewhere, someone has decided upon a standard color code scheme for the jackets of CAT5. I maintain a data and telcom system that uses all CAT5, we ended up with white, blue, and some red.....

Anyone have a list, like the old AT&T standard days?

Also, I know there is also a color code for painting the boards under the block fields, is this along the same ideas?

Looking to make my comm room a little nicer and even CLOSE to a standard, besides my own creative mess!

Thanks in advance!
Randy

 

[jimbopalmer]

Years ago I used hot pink for all my crossover cables, so I never accedentally used one, the engineers saw one and thought it was cool, and bought all their patch cables in hot pink. Hope your plan works better.

I tried to remain child-like, all I acheived was childish.

 

[daronwilson]

We use blue for data, white for voice unless otherwise specified. Many agencies/jobs have specifications for building wiring jacket color.

According to ANSI/EIA/TIA-606, the following are cross connect field colors:

Orange - DeMarcation point
Green - Network connections (network and auxiliary equip)
Purple - common equipment, PBX, LANs, multiplexers, etc.
White - First level backbone
Gray - Second level backbone
Blue - horizontal cabling to telecom outlets
Brown - interbuilding backbone (campus cable terminations)
Yellow - Misc. (auxiliary, alarms, security)
Red - Reserved for future use, also commonly key telephone systems.

Hope that helps, that is the table from the TDMM 9th edition.

Patch cables can be interesting. We use pink for crossover as well. Generally we use patch cables to match the horizontal wiring. Recently an install coincided with a new Nortel switch and multiple servers. We brought in several colors to make it easy, orange for PBX connections to the LAN, yellow for connections between the T1's and the routers at the other end of the wire ladder, red for all the servers connections to the LAN, etc. Once it was done, it made it nice when standing in front of the switch looking at 150+ cables to know somewhat what the use was.



It is only my opinion, based on my experience and education...I am always willing to learn, educate me!
Daron J. Wilson, RCDD
daron.wilson@lhmorris.com

 

[MasterRacker]

All the wiring I had done was similar to what Daron described. Blue for for data and white for voice. Almond walljacks for voice and blue for data.

As for patch cables, I used to color code them by length (so I could find re-used ones easily) but I gave up on that. I went to tan/gray for office data connections and yellow for wiring closet or data center connections data connections. I used purple for crossover cables. I picked that one because my original supplier sent them that way be default and I just stick with it.


Jeff
If your mind is too open your brains will fall out...