In high voltage networks, the most common protection of transmission lines from all types of faults is distance protection. One of the main reasons for the widespread use of distance protection (DP) is the ability to provide near and far reservation of protection for adjacent objects. In the mixed cables and overhead lines networks there are problems of maintenance of the earth fault distance protection effective operation, because of differences in the characteristics of high-voltage cables and wires of overhead lines. This should be taken into account at the task of the setting the tripping parameters for the earth fault distance protection in the cable lines. Statistical analysis of the earth fault distance protection effective operation in cable and overhead lines showed that during the earth faults through the transitive resistance the classical type quadrangular characteristics of operation does not provide the effective work of the DP in the cable lines. Based on probabilistic assessments of the earth faults programmable distance measuring units (PDMU) operation the new more efficient pentagonal tripping characteristic for the main DP zones for cable lines and combined tripping characteristic for complex network have been developed.