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| | Applications: Telecommunications - Trends in the Use of Copper Wire & Cable |
 | | The assumption is made that, while wiring practices may vary widely from country to country, including use of conductor materials as well as usage intensity of each type of wire and cable, nevertheless historical US trends, and their implications for the future, should be instructive for much of the rest of the world. |
 | | In the USA electric utility power cable is installed predominantly overhead and is aluminum, while in other countries, for example the Netherlands, the tradition is to install power cable underground, and to use a significantly greater proportion of copper. |
 | | This means that, for a given wattage of demand, the electric current in the US 120 v circuits is twice as large, resulting in the need for correspondingly larger wire on average, since conductor wire must be sized according to current. |
| www.copper.org /applications/telecomm/trends_cable.html (4729 words) |
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