Mike, If you don't draw a spark during ESD air discharge, and you have no surfaces to which a direct contact discharge can be injected, you won't create the E-field that is disruptive to high bandwidth transceiver systems nor will there be a conducted current spike to cause problems.
Plastic covers and shields in the right places at the right thicknesses may do the trick of keeping cable shells and other susceptible areas at sufficient separations to prevent ESD discharges. Best regards Tom Cokenias EMC Consultant/RF Transmitter Type Approvals >Folks, > >How does one provide ESD immunity for 100BASE-T ethernet >ports without interfering with the signal? > > >Thanks for listening. > > Mike Donnelly
