Armor for the Runs You Cannot Re-Pull

Armored Ethernet is not a premium version of ordinary Ethernet. It is a different answer to a different question: what happens to this cable between the two ends, and what does it cost to replace it if something goes wrong there? Where the answer involves a digger, a ceiling void, a live plant floor or a road closure, armor stops being an upgrade and becomes the cheap option.

Wider Cable manufactures armored Ethernet as part of our range, built on the same raw-material-to-finished control we have run since 2005 across our Dongguan headquarters in China and our facility in Hưng Yên, Vietnam.

What armor is actually protecting against

The word covers several distinct threats, and the right construction depends entirely on which one you have:

• Rodents. Ceiling voids, risers, agricultural buildings and food premises. Rodent damage is the single most common reason a cable that was never touched by anybody stops working.
• Crush and impact. Plant floors, loading bays, tray routes under maintenance access, and anywhere a pallet truck can reach.
• Ground load and excavation. Direct burial, where the threat is both the soil above and the next contractor with a spade.
• Abrasion and pull tension. Long duct pulls where the cable is dragged across edges under load.
• Deliberate interference. Exposed external routes where accessibility itself is the risk.

Each threat points at a different armor type and a different jacket. Telling us which one you are solving is more useful than asking for "armored cable".

What we need to specify it

1. The route — buried, in duct, on tray, aerial, or inside plant.
2. The threat — rodent, crush, excavation, abrasion, or a combination.
3. Installation method and pull tension, including the worst bend on the route.
4. Termination — how the armor is to be terminated, bonded and earthed at each end.
5. Electrical requirement — category, shielding, PoE budget and run length.
6. Compliance — the certification or reaction-to-fire class the project specification calls for.

Bonding is part of the design

A metallic armor is a conductor, whether or not it was intended to be one. It has to be terminated into a defined earthing scheme, at the designed end, using glands and accessories that suit the armor type. An armored run that is bonded at both ends into different ground potentials will carry current it was never meant to carry — and on a shielded construction, that interacts with the shield's own bonding path. Decide the scheme before the cable is ordered, not on site.

What we publish and what we do not

We will not print a crush rating, an armor gauge or a burial depth on a web page. Those figures only mean something for a defined construction, and a buyer designing a route against a generic published number is designing against nothing. What we will do is propose a construction against your route and threat, sample it where the project warrants, and quote it.

Every finished cable is Fluke-tested. Across the range we hold UL, c(UL), ETL, CPR, RoHS, REACH, CE, SGS, ISO and TÜV, attached to the constructions that genuinely carry them.

Related: Extreme environment cables · Water resistant cables · Outdoor Ethernet cables · Custom construction cables

Common questions

Is armored cable the same as outdoor cable?

No. Outdoor construction answers weather — sun, cold, water. Armor answers mechanical threat. Many buried routes need both, and they are specified separately.

Does armor replace the need for conduit?

Sometimes, and that is often where the saving is. It depends on the route, the threat and the local installation requirements — tell us the route and we will say what the construction can reasonably do.

How is the armor earthed?

Through the gland and accessory system at the designed end, into the project's earthing scheme. It should be decided as part of the design, because it affects the construction we propose.

Can you supply armored cable pre-terminated?

Tell us the termination and gland requirement with the enquiry. On armored runs the termination method shapes the construction, so it needs to be part of the same conversation.