Question:  I’m looking over the installation details for the Eclipse Median frame. I noted the mention of SHIELDED CAT-5 or 6 cable. Since we haven’t ordered cabling yet, I’m glad I’m seeing that now. However, I don’t recall having seen the requirement for shielded CAT cable prior to this reading. Does the system need CAT-6 or is CAT-5 adequate for most installations?  What problems does one run into without the shielded cable?
Answer:  The Eclipse system requires category-5 (CAT5) cable with RJ-45 connectors. All Eclipse system frames have built-in RJ-45 connectors.
Note: Clear-Com recommends the use of shielded CAT-5 cables throughout your Eclipse installation for EMC conformance.  Shielded CAT-5 cable is recommended for Electro Magnetic Compliance in EC countries.  Unshielded cables can be used but Clear-Com cannot guarantee the crosstalk and noise figures when unshielded CAT-5 cables are used. 
Note:  The term category 5 (CAT-5) refers to a communications cable standard that calls out transmission characteristics of twisted-pair cables for data communication use. For each increasing category (CAT) number the guaranteed bandwidth for data communication purposes increases.

For the 4-pair wiring scheme between the frame panels, Eclipse uses the AT&T T568B wiring standard for data cables. Cables for use with Ethernet 10-BASE-T are of this type. Cables are available in solid or stranded wire in either #24 or #26 AWG.