cable card 370 and the mechanical stresses it is subjected to due to the weight of cables and connectors connected it it is preferable to provide some sort of mechanical support for cable card 370 fig6 and 7 show an example of a support frame 395 that can be used to support cable card 370 support frame 395 is shown with a passage way 397 to enable connector field 352 to mate with a connector field on the equipment and slots 399 to accommodate connector pins which are soldered onto the cable card 370 by through hole technology support frame 395 can be made of cast iron zinc die cast structural plastic or any other sufficiently strong and rigid material although support frame 395 is shown as continuous from top to bottom in fig7 such that it would support essentially the entire area of cable card 370 a support frame could be provided that supports only the perimeter or any other portion of cable card 370 as long as cable card 370 is sufficiently supported fig8 shows a piece of network equipment similar to that shown in fig3 but equipped with cable card 370 and support frame 395 in the interest of clarity upper rigid layer 374 lower rigid layer 376 and connector fields 352 are not shown in fig8 the angle at which cable card 370 is bent at flexible sections 380 determines the increase in surface area obtained by the invention for example if cable card 370 is bent at 45 u00b0 relative to horizontal an increase of approximately 40 in board area is realized 2 sin 45 u00b0 1 4 other angles can also be used depending on.