Stranded vs. Solid

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 Question by Ryan Smolek posted 29 Jul 2002
 Stranded vs. Solid
I am living in a very old house that does not allow for cable to be sent behind the walls to a central location. The most central location is a closet on the middle floor of 3. All cables must be run along the wall. The cables terminate into jacks in each of the 7 rooms that I intend on sharing a DSL connection in. The closet contains a router to share the connection. The cables go from the jack direct to the router. My question is should i use stranded or solid cable. The cable has to be flush with the walland thus must go around a couple of bends such as door frames. Additionally, if I use stranded, how long can my runs be?
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 Answer by Dmitri Abaimov posted 31 Jul 2002
Dear Ryan,

You should definitely use solid-conductor cable because you do not anticipate to move your cables often - this is what stranded-conductor cables are designed for. Just keep an eye on minimum bend radius, which is 8 cable diameters (~ 4cm or ~1.75")

Theoretically, your stranded cables can be up to 70 meters long, but nobody actually runs those that far. Not even mentioning expensiveness of a stranded cable compared to solid.

You should also seriously consider wireless networking devices if your budget allows.

Sincerely,
Dmitri Abaimov, RCDD

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