Blue Jeans Cable

New Ethernet cables at BJC:

We've been known for quality Ethernet cables for a number of years. In a market where 80% of cables sold at retail fail to meet the specifications for their designated category, we test every last one of our Ethernet cables, whether Cat 5e, 6 or 6A, on a certification tester to ensure spec compliance. And yes, that's a certification tester, not a qualification tester; we are testing against the patch cord standard, not against the commonly-tested, inapplicable, and much easier channel standard.

For years now, all of our Ethernet patch cord stocks have been made by Belden. Today we are adding a new line of Cat 6 and 6A cables using cable stock made in Ware, Massachusetts by Quabbin Wire & Cable, a company known for its high quality and consistency of manufacture. As always, though we don't make the bulk cable ourselves, the cable is terminated and tested here in our Seattle shop, using Sentinel connectors from York, Pennsylvania.

The Quabbin 6A cable we've added is spec-compliant whether the shield is grounded or not; accordingly, we are now able to offer 6A patch cords either in shielded or unshielded configuration. Which to choose? It's pretty simple: if the rest of your network is unshielded, best to stay unshielded; but if if it's shielded, then shielded patchcords are the best choice.

We like to offer our cables in as many colors as possible (ideally, all ten resistor-code colors), but at the moment we are sort of in Henry Ford territory; you can have the 6A in any color you want, so long as it's blue. But we will be adding more colors over the coming months.

https://www.bluejeanscable.com/store/data-cables/index.htm

A Tariff Update: Impacts on Pricing

We've written previously about the probable pricing impact of new tariffs on various bulk stocks of cables and connectors which we import either directly or indirectly (that is, where we are not the importer of record but we purchase from the importer). In the face of substantial uncertainty as to which of these tariffs would go into effect and which would not, we made the decision, on an interim basis, to simply hold pricing stable and eat the cost increases. Regrettably, that's no longer possible.

Most of our vendors have now imposed substantial price increases on our incoming goods, whether those goods are of foreign or domestic origin. Belden, in fact, which manufactures cable principally in the USA, was the first to come in with a large tariff-linked price increase -- as we've stressed before, practically all manufacturers these days have complex supply chains which means that domestic goods are often just as heavily affected as foreign goods -- indeed, sometimes more heavily -- by tariff increases.

We directly import our custom connectors of various sorts from Taiwan, a traditional ally of the United States from the Cold War forward. Some of our best friends in this industry are Taiwanese and we have long preferred to buy goods from from Taiwan rather than China -- our policy, as we have said before, is "Buy Free World," and we will always source goods from lands where workers have enforceable rights and where free enterprise is allowed to flourish, unless it is completely impractical to do so.

Today we were invoiced for duty on a recent small shipment of connectors from Taiwan. The value of the shipment was $41,224.00. The pre-existing duties on these goods, at rates we have been paying for many years, come to $1,038.66, with the various goods in the shipment being taxed at rates ranging from duty-free to 3%. But on top of that now is added an across-the-board duty of 10%, or $4,122.40: just barely under a 400% increase in our tax liability.

Now that most of our vendors have increased prices as a result of tariffs, and now that our own import costs are higher, we are having to give way to the inevitable. Our prices will have to increase. We have always been a company that tries to deliver quality goods at prices which reflect real costs of manufacture rather than at high markups reflecting marketing whimsy and puffery. But, that being the case, the substantial cost increases we face on all sides cannot be resisted any longer; our margins just don't allow it.

We can't give you a rate of price increase that's applicable overall; that's because some goods we buy still haven't increased in price, while others have increased substantially, and even within a single product type, the cost increases are not uniform. So, for example, a short speaker cable has as many connectors on it as a long one; the short cable's price is dominated by the connectors, and as the cable gets longer, the influence of the cost of the cable itself becomes stronger, so changes to pricing will wind up being somewhat length-dependent. At the moment it seems likely that nothing will go up, at least immediately, by more than 10%. But a few of our suppliers are still holding the line on pricing, eating dramatically higher import costs themselves, and they cannot be counted on to do that indefinitely. Unless there is a dramatic change in US trade policy, all of them will increase their prices substantially.

We never like to make large pricing moves without a heads-up, and so we are also announcing that, while these price increases are coming, we will do nothing to increase our pricing until at least Friday, July 11. On that day and thereafter, we will start to reprice our goods; most categories will be affected.

Please understand that neither the price increases themselves, nor this post, are intended as political commentary. One may draw from it whatever one will. Some people are convinced that there is some long-term benefit to this policy and others are convinced there is not. Just as we don't take political advice from show-business people (whether from Hollywood or from the rodeo), we don't expect you to get your politics from us, and so while we have strong opinions in the matter, we will say nothing about that. The point here is to relate simple facts which are not even remotely in the realm of political dispute: the increases to our costs, as an American manufacturer, are substantial, and those costs inevitably run to the consumer. That's true whether you believe it's a good thing or a bad thing.

We have found that when we do comment upon this issue, there are a few people who tell us that we ought to source our connectors from American manufacturers. We actually do, in the case of Ethernet -- our principal connectors are from Sentinel in York, PA. But the pickings are very, very slim for most audio connector types, if one looks to American manufacture. We do not know of a single RCA plug manufactured in the USA which is even close to being suitable for our use, for example. A lot of remaining American connector production is in legacy connector designs, some of which haven't been updated since the 1940s, and some of which need it very badly. And nobody is rushing, or is likely to soon be rushing, to fill that gap. If we used a lot of industrial circular multi-contact mil-spec connectors, the picture would be different; but we don't.

Meanwhile, on cable, as we've said, the company from which we have bought millions of dollars of US-made cable over the years, Belden, was among the first to announce substantial tariff-driven price increases. We do source a great deal of cable from the United States; but none of that is immune from tariff-driven price increases.

So please do understand: we always have favored domestic sources over foreign, but more importantly, free-world sources over non-free-world sources. We have always believed that we should trade with America's allies. Heck, even when sourcing a pallet jack, we turned down a load of Chinese models and paid more for one made in Canada. We buy Swiss cable processing machines that cost tens of thousands of dollars, rather than cheaper Chinese machines that do the same work; we'd rather see our money go to Swiss workers than Chinese oligarchs. We also have a few American cable processing machines, but most of the types we need aren't made in this country at all.

If we could solve these cost problems by slapping our foreheads and saying, "gosh, you know what? I'll buy American!" we'd be quite happy to do so. We can't. We do hope that you'll stick with us during these confusing times, and that US trade policy does not continue to move adversely to our business and to the prices we are able to offer our customers.