Star quad and near end crosstalk
What is a star quad structure anyway?
In a four-core cable, this structure determines the arrangement of the cores within the cable. There are usually coloured cores in the data cable, but here we use the designation 1-4 to simplify our explanation. In a conventional cable, the cores are marked clockwise. This means that, e.g., 1 is at the top left, 2 at the top right, 3 at the bottom right, and finally 4 at the bottom left. In star quad stranding, the core order in the cable is 1, 3, 2, 4. The pairs 1-2 and 3-4 are perpendicular to each other in their magnetic fields to avoid signal overlap. This avoids near end crosstalk. You can find out more about this in our
blog.