atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Cabling Telephones Systems Wiring Category 8

Why not? Terminations have become easy enough although I imagine the IT geeks would have problems learning a new manual task.

-Hal

LOL I'd place my bets on IT geeks learning new technologies faster than old farts can. The first reason is durability. Id much rather have end users dealing with something stronger than fiber. Then there's not really any advantage to converting to a new desktop cabling technology as copper gigabit to the desktop fills most needs and fiber can still be ran on an as needed basis. On my desktop I have both fiber and copper connections but all our end users are on copper. Then there's cost. As a whole fiber tends to be more expensive to implement than copper. I can recall back in the early 2000s when people were talking about fiber taking over and seeing the demise of copper but yet here we are......same stories I used to hear about VOIP ending POTS back way back in 1999.

We're going around in circles here. We've already established that Cat5e "fills most needs" but the IT geeks have to have the latest "upgrades" which means that it will be Cat8 to the desktop.

I don't agree that fiber is any less durable than a piece of UTP. If it gets yanked on and stomped on under desks it's because some IT genius had no idea what neatness means.

-Hal

Of course, having gotten bored and decided to read the spec, Cat8 has a maximum length of 30 meters. Sort of makes the idea of taking it to the desktop a little bit of a challenge.

Doesn't mean the IT guys won't try for it anyway, but it at least gives us the ability to say "ok, you're moving all your users into the server rooms?"

Like I said in an earlier post. CAT8 is meant for the data center and not for the office environment.

Fiber to the desktop is happening all over. They are using a passive fiber network which keeps the cost down. Cost is the biggest factor as to why fiber to the desktop hasn't taken off.

Please take the Windows Mac war to another topic. I read here that Category 8 is intended only for the data center. It is called 40GBase-T or 40G for short, meaning 40 gigabits per second. The article also has a picture of the cables. Category 8.1 has 4 untwisted pairs plus an overall foil sheath. Category 8.2 has a foil sheath around each pair plus an overall foil plus braided sheath.

Sounds like it'll be real fun to work with....

Anybody notice that the Cat8.2 colors are W/B, W/O, W/G and white red??? Those look like old audio cables by the way. And if Cat8 is for data centers, surely they could afford fiber...

Time to stop kicking that dead horse.

-Hal

Apparently, there are three Category 8 standards: just Category 8, Category 8.1 and Category 8.2. Cagtegory 8.1 is also called Category 8 Class I, and Category 8.2 is also called Category 8 Class II. Say that ten times fast.

Category 8 and Category 8.1 will use the RJ-45 connector and Category 8.2 will not. It will the Siemon TERA® connector.

Here is a picture of the Siemon Tera connectors used with Category 8.2 cables.