Copper prices fall, but what about cable prices?

Are you familiar with our LinkedIn group? If you are not, please join. Approximately 1,700 cabling industry professionals from around the world are members.

For those of you who are members, you may be interested in one of the group's newest discussions. Alan Bullen, managing director of Lynx Networks plc in Milton Keynes, UK and a director of the FibreOptic Industry Association, wants to know: "Now that the price of copper has dropped 35 percent and is at its lowest price for two years, when will we see a corresponding drop in cable prices?" The price chart below is taken from metalprices.com and covers copper pricing over the past six months.



The price of copper has been pointed to frequently as one head of the three-headed monster that has sent the price of copper cable up over the past year-plus. The other two heads on that monster are the price of petroleum (a copper cable's jacket is petroleum-based) and, for plenum-rated cable at least, the price of fluorinated ethylene propylene (FEP), which insulates the copper conductors of plenum-rated cables. But Alan Bullen is from the U.K., where they do not use plenum cable per se but rather use low-smoke zero-halogen cables. Still, the pricing of those cable types are subject to the costs of the materials used in their manufacture.

So what do you think? Is the price of copper cable on the way down? Is it just wishful thinking? Perhaps a criticism of copper technology from a prominent member of the FibreOptic Industry Association? Check out our LinkedIn group or comment here on The Cabling Blog to weigh in.