Is distance extension the only reason to use coaxial cable? The R&D team of EnConn has over twenty years experience in coaxial cable in cable TV society. EnConn as an EoC (Ethernet over Coax) solution provider will say the true reason is deeper than distance extension. To answer this question, we need to review why people use copper cable in IP camera. It is obvious that people use copper cable simply following IT Ethernet standard. Copper cable like Cat5e or Cat 6 has many advantages such as low cost, small outer diameter, and easy bending. However, for industry usage, the life time and reliability of cable are becoming much more important. Since copper cable (UTP) has very weak protection on its outer coat layer, it is quite sensitive to humidity and EMI of environment. Although there is no official number to tell how is the life time of UTP cable exposed to high humidity environment, however, some people claimed there is only 3 or 4 years (ref 1) and said copper cable is not suitable to use for IP surveillance. This is the deepest reason why Enconn thinks copper cable is not suitable for IP camera surveillance.

   From EnConn’s point of view, coaxial cable has been widely used in outdoor cable TV system or inside the building or CCTV for over several ten years. It is a robust and cost effective media in video transmission industry. Copper cable is more proper to use in some areas not so concerning about reliability. Of course, you might be able to add PE material as the outer coat of UTP to increase its lifetime. But copper cable will lose all its advantages when doing this and become very expensive and heavy. Comparing with UTP cable, coaxial cable has much better lifetime and reliability to worsen environment. In addition, the performance to cost ratio of coaxial cable will be much higher than the one of UTP with PE outer coat cable or the one of fiber cable. Besides, there are a lot of existed analogue coax cables used by analogue camera. To utilize existed coax cable or same coax media can help installer to accept to install IP camera. Therefore, coaxial cable is the perfect match for IP camera system. Of course, to find a cost-effective and proper pair of UTP to coax converter is the final step to use coaxial cable as media for IP camera. That is also the mission of EnConn to IP camera industry. EnConn’s EoC (Ethernet over coax) product is the perfect match for IP camera industry from EnConn’s point of view.