electrostatic discharge is common on category 5e and category 6 cabling systems.

    category 5e and category 6 cables have higher capacitance than category 5 cables. as a result, category 5e and category 6 cables can store higher voltages than category 5 cables and are more prone to damaging networking equipment if a differential discharge event occur.

    unshielded twisted-pair cables can store high voltages. when these charged cables are connected to networking equipment, energy is discharged into the networking equipment; this is known as electrostatic discharge (esd). networking equipment is commonly designed and tested to withstand common mode esd events of up to 2000 v. the design for the common mode event is based on the expectation that the discharge is delivered to all pins of a port at once.

    sometimes, voltage is discharged to some of the pins of the connector and not others, or to some pins on the connector before others. this is known as a differential discharge event, which can damage the networking equipment being connected.

    you can take the following measures to prevent esd cable damage:

    1 ground the cable before connecting the networking equipment. you can create a grounding cable using an rj-45 patch cable by doing the following:

    1.bare the wires on one end

    2.connect the wires to a suitable and safe earth ground

    3.connect the rj-45 cable to a female rj-45 connector

    2 briefly connect all cables to the grounded cable before connecting to networking equipment.

    3 leave cables from the networking equipment in the distribution closet connected to ports at user desktops. after you make connections on either side of the cable to networking equipment, the cable will not build up charge.