Every time I choose to publicize a CCCA action or statement, I hear about it. Not from members of the group or its executive director, but from people who firmly believe that the CCCA is an organization founded for the sole (or at least primary) purpose of furthering the cause of chemical manufacturers doing business in the cabling industry. Indeed, the CCCA counts among its members AlphaGary, Daikin America, Dupont, Dyneon, PolyOne and Solvay Solexis. Six of the twenty members listed on CCCA's Web site produce chemicals and materials that are used in the manufacture of cable and/or cabling components.
As I tell my children when they're trying to pull one over on me: I was born at night, but not last night. Do I think these companies joined the CCCA to figure out how they could get less of their products sold into the cable industry? Ummm, no. While the group itself is a "dot-org" meaning it is established as a not-for-profit organization, its members are in business for the same reason we all are: to make a profit.
Having been born not-as-recently-as-last-night, I also realize that companies' membership in any professional group or association is aimed at advancing their dollars-and-cents business. When I visit a company's home page and see one or more industry-association logos prominently displayed, I don't pretend the logo's presence is meant to bring the company's CEO a round of applause when she or he walks down the street. Nor is it there to improve a member of management's chances with St. Peter at the Pearly Gates. In most cases, such display of a logo has a twofold purpose, the elements of which are inextricable - to claim a measure of professional competence and to leverage that competence in the quest for new business opportunities.
Just in case I haven't already beaten this dead horse, let me summarize by saying that instances of altruism in situations like these are few and far between. If you know of some, please - I mean it - share them with me. For now, I'll charge on with this soliloquy.
Now that we (or at least I) accept that the CCCA is like other organizations and associations in that its members have business interests in mind, let's look at the rest of its membership. Two of the three major distributors serving the North American cabling market are CCCA members. Other members make up a pretty noteworthy pack of market-share front runners for cabling products. In short, CCCA membership represents a not-insignificant percentage of the cabling products and systems that are sold into the marketplace. For that reason, what the group says and what it does are newsworthy. When this collection of companies, representing the market share that it does, sets and carries out an agenda, its actions will affect the consultants, contractors, end users and all the other professionals who specify, recommend, purchase, install, and/or ultimately use cabling products. That the CCCA has an agenda is not a secret. The organization is nearly three years old and when I interviewed some of its founders in early 2008, they made it clear to me what they intended to do. And I tried to make the group's agenda clear to anyone who read about it in this article from an issue of Cabling Installation & Maintenance magazine published in 2008.
Here is an excerpt from that article.
Product-quality problems are not exclusively limited to counterfeiting, in which a rogue company uses the name and branding of a legitimate manufacturer. Anixter's [vice president of emerging technologies Pete] Lockhart describes another similarly vexing challenge that CCCA is taking on. "We're calling the project 'product certification,'" he says. "We want to separate the sub-par product that's being sold from that which is being sold for the good of the industry. The product is not counterfeit, but it is unethical."
Both Lockhart and [CommScope's executive vice president Randy] Crenshaw cited patch cords as an example of some substandard products entering the market with the same markings and packaging as legitimately performing products, leaving purchasers with little if any means of differentiating good from bad. Crenshaw adds, "The issue is trying to get a common set of expectations so the customer can reliably buy product and know it is what it should be."
CCCA executive director Frank Peri explains that the product-certification initiative seeks to weed out products that, "do not counterfeit a brand, but rather counterfeit quality." There is an intent to deceive, he says, and often the products carry the mark of an independent-verification house, even though the manufacturer knowingly puts into the product a material that would not meet the performance levels required to achieve that verification.
The actions the CCCA has taken, including and notably its influence over UL's recent enforcement actions, are in line with those intentions and I, for one, was not surprised to see the news.
Now I know what happens next. I'll once again be characterized as carrying the CCCA's water. (No one's ever used that phrase with me actually. They've instead used more colorful language that describes the social hierarchy of maximum-security prisons.) And I know how defensive this sounds because I've tried many different ways to articulate it and they all sound the same. So I'll just say it like it is. I try to let professionals in the cabling industry know about the actions of the CCCA not because I'm in it to advance their cause. Rather, I believe the association can and does exert influence that can affect the purchase and use of cabling products and systems. That's a very practical concern for the aforementioned professionals who design, install and use cabling systems on a daily basis. They (You) should at least have the opportunity to know the direction in which the industry's market-share leaders are pushing the marketplace.
2 comments:
Before there were categories we had this kind of thing happening all the time. Distys were quoting all sorts of variations of cables that were "just as good".
Verifying claims and publicly discussing the fallout is good for the industry and its customers.
Sometimes good enough isn't, pointing out fraud will save lives, could be yours.
Having worked in 3 levels of the business- distribution, manufacturer, and contractor- I can confirm the value of the CCA's actions to validate performance. I have seen all over how the 'price-only' crowd works on customers who aren't able to differentiate one cat 6 from another, for example.
I see customers and consultants who are uneducated about patch cords, using $1.50 so-called category 6 cords on a tier-one infrastructure. What service does this lack of direction from the under-educated engineer / consultant provide?
I see people specifying and requiring 50 micron fiber, thinking they're getting LOMMF OM3, when the low cost guy brings OM2 because the performance isn't called out or understood.
I've long disliked the 'category' label for cabling. Instead, I have wanted the magic want to start over with throughput or bandwidth performance-based cabling, not electrical property-based cabling. It's tough to educate a customer on the appropriate gigabit cabling when 5e or 6 are categorically both the same for switch throughput. Both carry gig and neither carries 10 gig. I know the difference, but a better standard would have made this a mute point.
...To sum it up: a performance-based standard with test reports included- that's my better world.
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