On 7/1/2008, Bret McDougal wrote:
The question has come up whether there are any requirements on the gold
plating thickness for Ethernet Connectors (not used for telco interface),
similar to the requirements for 50u" of Gold for Telco connections.
Hi Bret:
I suspect that the answer is no, although I would have to see IEC 60603-7,
which is the connector standard called out in clause 14.5.1 of IEEE 802.3-2002.
The reason that gold plating was called out in FCC Part 68 was that it is
common for non-gold-plated contacts to corrode over time, especially in humid
environments such as Florida, and introduce noise in a voice call. Since FCC
Part 68 is "network harms based," the interpretation of "network harm" that
was used to justify this requirement was that it would reduce the number of
field service calls for noisy lines.
Since the FCC-style modular plugs and jacks have been widely adopted by other
countries and for other, non-telco applications such as Ethernet, there is
some chance that when the physical requirements for the connectors were copied
into these newer standards, the requirement for gold plating was copied along
with everything else. So, I suppose you would have to check IEC 60603-7 to
see what it says. Chances are that the gold plating is listed as an option,
rather than a mandatory requirement.
In any event, the IEEE 803.3 series is an industry standard and not a
regulatory standard, so even if gold plating is called out in IEC 60603-7, it
does not have the same regulatory significance that it does in FCC Part 68.
That being said, I would be inclined to use gold plating, at least in a thin
coating, to avoid the type of corrosion problems that FCC Part 68 was trying
to address.
Joe Randolph
Telecom Design Consultant
Randolph Telecom, Inc.
781-721-2848 (USA)
[email protected]
http://www.randolph-telecom.com <http://www.randolph-telecom.com/>
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