Superior Essex CAT 6+ LSHF - Where Health Matters, Material Ingredients Matter

Today's medical facilities face a unique set of challenges when designing and building their network infrastructure. Networks must support an increasing array of advanced medical technologies that enable medical practitioners to best treat their patients, as well as allow those practitioners to communicate quickly with other medical personnel both locally and worldwide. But because they operate in an industry that is oriented toward improving human health, designers and managers of medical facilities must also consider the health impacts of the products they put into those buildings, specifically the material ingredients of those products.

One common material ingredient in many communications cables is PVC, which can often be found in a cable's jacketing. But PVC can be toxic, especially when burned. Thus, many product-conscious markets, such as green building and healthcare, are moving away from using products that include PVC, which itself is just one among a whole list (the RED list) of material ingredients that have been identified as harmful to human and ecological health. 

Finding a communications cable that not only offers the performance and reliability that medical networks rely on, but also one that meets the stringent material-ingredient standards proposed by these types of facilities, has been a pipe dream. Until now. 

Recently, Superior Essex released the first Cateogry 6+ premises copper cable with the Low Smoke Halogen Free designation from UL Wire and Cable, a division of the leading safety science company Underwriters Laboratories. The LSHF designation ensures that this cable does not contain any red-list ingredients, reducing the health and safety risks as well as the environmental impact of this product throughout its lifecycle. 

The Superior Essex Category 6+ with the LSHF designation is the industry's only CAT 6+ CMR LSHF cable that does not require a cross-filler or divider in its configuration, providing increased flexibility and easier handling during installation, as well as reducing the amount of plastic in the cable construction. Superior Essex CAT 6+ LSHF cables are also the first and only CAT 6+ CMR LSHF cables to be manufactured in a Zero Waste to Landfill facility, and to offer Health Product Declarations (HPD), which can contribute toward credits in LEED green-building certification.