Cable Color Codes: ANSI/TIA/EIA-606

Posted by NavePoint on Apr 28th 2021

What cable colors are you using in your rack setup? Most people use black or blue cables because they are commonly available, easy to the eye and blue is the favorite color choice, globally. Some installers wire their cabinets with pink or purple cables because they think the vibe is interesting. However you decide what cable colors to use in your installations, did you know that American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and other standards institutions have developed a cable color code standard?

The ANSI/TIA/EIA-606-B is the administration standard for commercial telecommunications, or in other words, it is a document to keep all IT engineers in the US designing the same thing, so a technician will know which wire to diffuse at a time of crisis instead of guessing.

Infrastructure

Black

Black is the symbolic color of mystery, power, elegance, and sophistication. However, in the eyes of EIA-606-B, black is the color of the ink used to print the standard. If that is not the case, I cannot think of a reason why black is not part of the color codes.

Orange

Orange is the “Demarcation Point”, or “Central Office Termination”. The demarcation point is the point at which the public switched telephone network ends and connects with the customer's on-premises wiring. Or in other words, it is the wiring carrying your network provider’s signal to your modem.

Green

Green indicates the Network Connection, or in other words, the connection between your modem to your network switch, WIFI router, cable boxes …etc. It should terminate the network connection on the customer side of the demarcation point.

Purple

Purple indicates the Common Equipment. Business telephone systems (PBX), computers, LANs…etc. should be connected with purple-colored cables.

White

White is used for first-level backbone telecommunication media terminations. The first-level backbone is a cable between the main cross-connect (MC) and intermediate cross-connect (IC) or horizontal cross-connect (HC) mainly used in data centers. The main cross-connect is the centralized portion of the Backbone cabling used to mechanically terminate and administer the backbone cabling while the intermediate cross-connect is the cross-connect between 1st level and 2nd level backbone cabling. The backbone is the portion of the network cabling which connects across the various rooms and communication panels, carrying the largest number of fibers and normally constituting the longest cable run.

Gray

Similar to white, gray is used for the second-level backbone telecommunication media terminations.

Blue

Blue is used for horizontal cabling. Horizontal Cabling is any cabling that is used to connect a floor’s wiring closet to wall plates in work areas to provide local area network (LAN) drops for connecting users’ computers to the network.

Brown

Brown is used for interbuilding backbone cable terminations.

Yellow

Yellow is used for the termination of auxiliary circuits, alarms, maintenance, security, and other miscellaneous circuits.

Red

Red is used for the termination of key telephone systems.

Summery

Structured cabling design and installation typically follow a set of standards that specify wiring data centers, offices, and apartment buildings for data or voice communications using various kinds of cable. These standards define how to lay the cabling in various topologies including the cable color codes shared today. These color codes may seem too technical for installers not in the data center industry. Make sure to check out NavePoint’s selection of cables. NavePoint’s CCA cables may provide the most value for connecting sensors and alarms through a low wattage PoE system.

Contact NavePoint’s sales or customer service team at 888-505-1363 to learn more about how we may be able to help with your specific need!