Earthing the Armour of a SWA ethernet cable on a gland connection

Question

Earthing the Armour of a SWA ethernet cable on a gland connection

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Asked 7 months in Wired Network Infrastructure by Adam | 1 Answer

I'm looking to run a length of SWA CAT 6 cable externally between house and garage. It won't be run alongside any power cables, and will only ever get within a few feet of any. I plan to make off a gland at either end into wall-mounted plastic junction boxes and connect to patch cables.

Do I still need to earth the SWA at one or both ends? And if so, how would I do that considering that usually with electrical cable, the gland would be earthed to that via an earthing nut, but with ethernet cable there is nothing to earth to?

1 Answer

score 0 · Answer 1

Hi Adam

It is not essential to earth the steel wire armour on a data cable as there will never be a high voltage on the cable. If the cable is shielded you should connect the drain wire and foil shield to a shielded RJ45 plug and use a shielded socket and shielded infrastructure to ensure that the shield remains continuous and gets grounded at the data cabinet.