An effort is pursued by several European National Measurement Institutes to lower the uncertainties in calibration of UHV measuring systems for lightning impulse. To this end, several reference dividers are investigated as regards their accuracy both for amplitude and for time parameters. During these investigations a deterioration of step response was identified when longer coaxial cables were inserted in the measuring circuit. The measured front time T1 was also affected, in one observed case by 2.5 % elongation of front time as another 25 m cable was inserted. Compared to the intention to calibrate front time measurement to better than 5 % uncertainty for front time, this contribution must be well known, or preferably be eliminated. This paper presents the experimental findings from these investigations. The investigated cables included selected coaxial, tri-axial, and cables with a corrugated screen. The effect of cable length was also studied. The influence was first discovered when applying a very fast step (rise-time < 4 ns) to the high voltage arm of a resistive divider and convolution of this step with the time derivative of an ideal lightning impulse with 0.84/60 µs impulse. The calculated output was analysed with IEC 61083 compliant software to evaluate the front time. Subsequently, these analyses have been augmented by additional comparative measurements where two reference dividers were connected to the same impulse generator, and varying the cable length of one of them. The summarized changes in front time calculated for different combinations of cable and impulse voltage dividers are shown and discussed. It is noted that a change in T1 error depends both on length of cable and its type. The results show that non-negligible front time errors may be introduced when the cable length is increased. To support these findings, further tests have been carried out with two reference impulse dividers connected in standard calibration configuration in accordance with IEC 60060-2. One divider was used as reference, while the cable for the other was varied. In this way, the change of error between configurations could be measured. A theoretical study has also been performed, calculating the distortion of a lightning impulse on a coaxial cable. The results agree qualitatively with experiments, but the detailed results show discrepancies that need further investigation.