# Cable run planner

> Speed, distance, environment, PoE in - every compliant cable and fiber option out, each citing the TIA-568 or 802.3 rule that governs it, with honest exclusions for the rest.

- Tool: https://ronutz.com/en/tools/cable-run-planner
- Family: Networking

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The planner answers the field question exactly as the standards do: for this speed, this distance, this environment, and this PoE need, which media are compliant. Pick a speed tier, type the one-way channel distance, and every twisted-pair category and fiber grade that carries it appears - each with its maximum reach and the governing rule spelled out: the ANSI/TIA-568 100 m channel, 802.3bz's 2.5G-on-Cat 5e and 5G-on-Cat 6 mappings, the Cat 6 10-gigabit ceiling of roughly 55 m (TIA TSB-155), Cat 8's 30 m data-center window, and the SR/LR optic reach ladder (10GBASE-SR at 300 m on OM3 and 400 m on OM4, up through 100GBASE-SR4 and the 10 km LR class on single-mode).

The exclusion list is half the tool: anything that fails says exactly why - not specified for the speed, or out of reach at the distance. Environment adds the shielding (F/UTP, S/FTP), plenum-jacket (CMP/OFNP), and outdoor guidance as notes; a PoE class adds the 802.3af/at/bt confirmation, with the TSB-184-A bundle-heat note attached for bt. Everything runs locally, the rules table is pinned by fourteen golden vectors including exact-at-limit optics cases, and the same engine answers through the site's API with a JSON body of `{"speedMbps": 10000, "distanceM": 80, "environment": "office", "poe": "none"}`. It pairs with the [structured cabling](https://ronutz.com/en/learn/structured-cabling) article, where the channel model the numbers come from is developed.

## Standards and references

- [ANSI/TIA-568 family (TIA): 100 m twisted-pair channel (90 m permanent link + 10 m cords), category definitions Cat 5e/6/6A, and Category 8's 2000 MHz / 30 m channel (TIA-568.2-D)](https://tiaonline.org) - copper channel limits and category definitions
- [IEEE 802.3 clauses: 802.3bz (2.5G on Cat 5e / 5G on Cat 6 at 100 m), 802.3an 10GBASE-T, 802.3ae/by/ba/bm SR- and LR-class optic reaches (10G SR: 300 m OM3 / 400 m OM4; 25G SR: 70/100 m; 40G SR4: 100/150 m; 100G SR4: 70/100 m; LR class: 10 km OS2), 802.3af/at/bt PoE](https://www.ieee802.org/3/) - speed-over-medium mappings and optic reach figures
- [TIA TSB-155 (10GBASE-T over Cat 6: 37-55 m alien-crosstalk-dependent guidance) and TSB-184-A (PoE bundle heat-rise guidance for 802.3bt)](https://tiaonline.org) - the Cat 6 10G ceiling and the bt thermal note

## Related reading

- [Structured cabling: the system behind the wall jack](https://ronutz.com/en/learn/structured-cabling.md): TIA-568 turns a building's wiring from improvisation into a system: horizontal runs, telecom rooms, the 100-meter channel, categories, pinouts, and the fire ratings inspectors actually check. The map from wall plate to backbone.