standard cable

engineering UK, USA 1905 A standard for attenuation used in telecommunications, being a notional cable 1 mile in length, of capacitance 0.054 μF, resistance 88 ohms, inductance 1 mH, and leakance 1 μmho. A signal of 800 Hz (about central in energy terms for telephony) suffered about 20% attenuation over the mile.

The performance of real cables could be measured by equivalence in miles of this standard cable, expressed as standard miles, as could the contribution of attenuation-reducing ancillary devices.

This unit was succeeded by the transmission unit in 1922.

See also cable, cable length, cable's length.