Friday, 14 October 2016

Excel Networking Solutions, the copper and optical cabling infrastructure provider, is ahead of the game compared to a large number of cable suppliers in terms of the introduction to the EU Construction Products Regulation (CPR) on copper and fibre cables. Excel has shipments of stock arriving across the majority of the Excel Category 6 & 6A ranges of cable over the next 4 weeks. These products have been tested to the recently announced legislation and have the appropriate Declarations of Performance (DoP) and packaging is labelled and CE marked in accordance with the Regulation, along with markings printed on the cable sheath.

In February 2016 the Official Journal of the EU (OJEU) announced that the testing standard across all countries in the EU had now been ratified. The regulation itself then came into force on 1st July 2016, however there is a period of coexistence (when pre - CPR product can still be sold) lasting 12 months allowing for all products to be tested. By 1st July 2017 all products covered by this regulation must be tested and appropriately CE marked.

Paul Cave, Technical Product Manager for Excel explained ‘the major implication of the change in standards is that the IEC60332 flammability rating will be replaced by a range of EuroClasses from A – F, where A being the most flame retardant and F as the least, ie most flammable. However we only expect to see cables meeting from B2ca down to F in the communications industry.’

Paul continued ‘CPR ONLY applies to the ‘fixed infrastructure’, therefore does not include any connecting hardware or patch leads and fan-out assemblies. It will however cover any pre-terminated solution such as MTP Trunk Cables etc that are deemed to be ‘fixed’, but these will rely on the bulk cable certification which the assembly has been constructed from.’

Paul explained ‘We have been fully aware of the importance and implication of this change from the start and we’ve made sure that as soon as each stage has become effective, we’ve taken the appropriate action and hence we already have products that have gone through the appropriate testing and are printed with the new CE markings, being delivered into stock.’

The existing stocks of cable will be depleted before the new stocks are used, but Excel is more than ready for the switch over when it officially takes place on 1st July 2017 and CE marked copper and fibre cables will be introduced as soon as existing stocks are exhausted.’

For more details on the CPR initiative read the article https://www.excel-networking.com/news/construction-products-... and the Excel CPR white paper

For details on the complete Excel range please visit the new excel website www.excel-networking.com