atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Cabling Telephones Systems Wiring Cat 6 VS 6A network cabling

As far as fiber, it is almost easier to install it, but the cost of NIC cards and switches drive the customers costs way up.

That's because there isn't a demand for them. 100 Base T stuff used to be expensive too.

But gee wilikers, if they adopt fiber what will the VoIP crowd do? The'll have to have two types of phones. And how do you do power over fiber?

-Hal

I Just went to a luncheon seminar last Thurs. about 10 gig cabling at Graybar put on by Berktek. He stated that the standard had been ratified with the exception of adendumn 10 (?), but it was just a formality.
The newly designed berktek 10Gig cable has been reduced to 0.232" versus 0.3" most every body elses. That is still a large cable in comparison to regular cat-6. If conduits are used, you need to make sure double gang boxes are installed to maintain the bend radius needed in order not to deform the cable.
I have installed 100's of thousands of feet cat-6 but have not installed cat6a yet. I do feel it is overkill for an office space, but maybe well suited for the data center.
Running fiber to the desktop was brought in this seminar by someone attending. It was stated that the cost per port for copper was $2000 and the cost per port for fiber was $8000. These were based on the equipment cost as well as the cabling media used.
I am by no means an expert on cat-6a but I just wanted to share some up to date info for all.

But the advantage fiber has is that you don't have to go through this BS every few years. Do it once and all you have to worry about is upgrading hardware.

UTP with it's constant "upgrades" is just another gravy train for companies that make it as well as the jacks, patch panels and other stuff. So you know they are going to poo poo fiber. How much cable would they have sold if hardware manufacturers were able to put CAT6A bandwidth on existing CAT3 from 20 years ago?

-Hal

We just finished an install of 36 miles of "augmented" or "enhanced" Cat 6 to 2022 locations. I would agree with the need to consider additional size and weight in the pathways, conduits etc. Conduit fill was much lower also, affecting # of cores and conduits needed. Labor was between 12%-17% more for the install. The testing was a bit trying. The cable is not shielded, and is extremely susceptible to cross talk. The Fluke DSP 4300 does not test to "Cat 6A", because there is no formal standard in place. I would add at least 10% more time for testing and caveats for once the standard is in place.
The only way I think that 10 gig UTP will happen is if the cable, jacks patch panels etc. are shielded.

Why is 6A more susceptible to cross talk?

Higher frequencies.

-Hal

I could be wrong, but I think one of the main reasons for gig copper solutions is the cost of the equipment that will handle all those fiber connections in a data. They would rather put in a cisco 4500 at the head end vis a SAN.

It isn't so much that 6a cable is more susceptible to cross talk. Obviously Cat6a cable is going to have better characteristics than 5e or 6. But when you start running 10Gig ethernet over UTP, cross talk is more of a problem because of the higher frequencies.

Like it's creating crosstalk?

Well, yes. It bleeds from one pair to another as well as cable to cable.

-Hal