> From: Michael Ableyev <charon at netzero.net>

> Plenum cables are covered with fire retardant of some sort or other. That's all there's to it, I 
> frankly, don't see why in the world they're so desired.
> If it's fear of intoxication, then having plenum cables gives only a false sense of security cos in 
> a burning building there are usually enough of other toxic materials to sniff yourself dead. Oh, and 
> also the thing most people die of in a completely toxin free building fire - ye ol' smoke.
> Someone, please, educate me as well, the rest of the world can't be so ignorant, i'm proly missing 
> something. :-)

It's due to fire code and NEC (National Electric Code.)  Even low voltage 
cables have the potential (no pun intended) of starting fires.  The thing is 
that you never know what the failure mode of the box it's hooked up to will 
be -- if a computer suffers AC death syndrom and puts 120VAC on the ethernet 
cable, it could be a bad thing. 

These sorts of failures do not happen in real life, at least very often -- 
but they're not impossible.  It's primarily a liability thing at this point 
 -- if the State of <XX> allowed people to build buildings that burned down 
and it came out that there was a preventative measure that could have been 
taken, they'd be out on a limb for all sorts of litigation. 

There are some environments where this is really important, though. 

Can you run non-plenum cable around your house and live to tell about it?  I 
can't officially tell you to do that.  <wink> 

P 

 --
"To misattribute a quote is unforgivable." -- Anonymous 

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