Keystone Jacks

How to choose a keystone jack

• Category must match the cable. A Cat.6 jack on a Cat.6A cable caps the channel at 250 MHz and 1 Gbps. Cat.6A jacks are rated to 500 MHz for 10GBASE-T over the full 100 m.
• Shielded or unshielded. The jack decides whether a screened cable is actually screened. A shielded FTP jack carries the cable screen through to the faceplate or panel and on to the rack earth, which is what suppresses alien crosstalk in dense Cat.6A bundles. Put an unshielded jack on a shielded cable and the shielding benefit is gone.
• Conductor size. The Cat.6 UTP module is specified for 23 to 24 AWG solid Cat.6 UTP or F/UTP cable, which covers the whole DAD LINK 305 m range.
• Where it mounts. Standard snap-in keystone format, so the same module fits a 24 port unloaded patch panel, a 1 or 2 port faceplate, or a DIN rail keystone holder in a control cabinet.

Range

All four are RJ45 8P8C, standard snap-in keystone format, with 110 type IDC punch down termination and dual T568A and T568B wiring guides, to ISO/IEC 11801 and TIA-568.

Typical use

Keystone jacks are ordered two per drop, one for the panel and one for the outlet. Offices and hotels in Erbil take the Cat.6 UTP module at the desk, while universities and hospitals standardise on the Cat.6A FTP module for floor distributors feeding 10 Gigabit uplinks. Shielded jacks belong wherever the horizontal cable is F/UTP or SF/UTP: bank and government server rooms in Baghdad, industrial plant and any run beside power containment.

Related

Snap them into a 24 port unloaded patch panel or a 1 or 2 port faceplate, terminate 305 m Cat.6 or Cat.6A cable onto them, and patch with a matching copper patch cord. Termination guide: T568A vs T568B, the right way to terminate Cat6 keystone jacks. Prices are not published online, so contact an authorized distributor for a quotation.