Twisted-pair copper data cables must be tested to TIA/ISO standards during network cabling. Copper certification testers function by determining PASS/FAIL results according to the frequency limits for each test defined within industry standards such as ISO/IEC 11801:2002 or ANSI/TIA/EIA-568.

The tests performed for certification are:

Test Parameter	TIA-568-B	ISO 11801:2002
Wiremap	Pass/Fail	Pass/Fail
Propagation Delay	Pass/Fail	Pass/Fail
Delay Skew	Pass/Fail	Pass/Fail
Cable Length	Pass/Fail	Information only
Insertion Loss (IL)	Pass/Fail	Pass/Fail
Return Loss (RL)	Pass/Fail (except Cat3)	Pass/Fail
Near-End Crosstalk (NEXT)	Pass/Fail	Pass/Fail
Power Sum NEXT (PSNEXT)	Pass/Fail	Pass/Fail
Equal-Level Far-End Crosstalk (ELFEXT)	Pass/Fail	Pass/Fail
Power Sum ELFEXT (PSELFEXT)	Pass/Fail	Pass/Fail
Attenuation-to-Crosstalk Ratio (ACR)	Information only	Pass/Fail (except Class C)
Power sum ACR (PSACR)	Information only	Pass/Fail (except Class C)
DC Loop Resistance		Pass/Fail

There are essentially two types of certification testers:

Verification testers: for basic continuity function checks, such as toning and wiremap. Used when networks are extended, changed, or moved; they sometimes include Time Domain Reflectometers.
Qualification testers: used to determine whether a network qualifies for certain data network jobs. For example, is it able to handle faster network speeds or technologies such as VoIP, Gigabit Ethernet, or 100BASE-TX? Useful for network technicians who want to upgrade a system to higher speeds or analyse connectivity problems.

We stock a range of verification and qualification certification testers by leading manufacturers. For more information please get in touch.