sundance-communications.com Forums Member Forums Phone Booth How soon before...

You know sooner or later that home owners are going to ask...

"I want to wire my house with Category 8. Do you think you can cut me a deal?"

"At my price of $800 for 1000 ft just for the cable and doesn't include hardware or a new Fluke tester for over $12,000....I don't think so, Tim."

Cat 8 Riser

Fluke DSX2-8000

Category 8 cabling has a greater throughput capability; it can support transmission of data up to 40Gbps over balanced twisted pair copper cabling. The solution is a shielded solution--there is no unshielded variant. Therefore, careful attention must be paid to shield terminations when installing the solution. All previous categories of balanced twisted pair copper cabling supported a Permanent Link Length of 90m (295’) and a channel of 100m (328’). Category 8 has a maximum Permanent Link Length of 24m (78’) and a maximum Channel length of 30m (100’) when supporting 25Gbps and 40Gbps speeds. Category 8 cabling can support data speeds of 10Gbps and lower at a full 100m (328’) Channel configuration. When field-testing Category 8 solutions, the installation is tested from 1MHz to 2000MHz, whereas Category 6A balanced twisted pair copper cabling is only field tested from 1MHz to 500MHz.

And it's meant for places like data centers, but it won't keep them from asking.

I just finished an install where the guys doing the cabling were spec'd CAT8 'Super Cable' for a run between two data closets. Total distance was about 60 feet. The IT guys were almost giddy at the prospect. Since none of their equipment could actually benefit from the supposed advantages of the cable, the turn-up was somewhat anti-climactic.

The paying customer's always right.

Doesn't take much to make an IT guy giddy...

-Hal

Ohhhhh Noooo Not Again....... A little different topic. About 6 months ago I was asked to run Fiber from an MDF to an abandoned IDF in a school to make a printer work whose cable was terminated in that old closet. I said I could run a cat 5e cable from the MDF to the printer location well within 300 feet and it would be fine. Nope we want the fiber since other stuff might be coming out of that closet. O.k. How about I tone the cable in question and at least make sure it comes out of that closet? Nope we already did that. Fast forward to now. They finally got around to trying to hook up that printer. That old abandoned IDF was truly abandoned, the cable they were looking for was in the NEW IDF that replaced the abandoned IDF. The tone they heard in the abandoned IDF was probably just bleed from the cable, if they truly toned it. So about $600 worth of fiber and my time, wasted. Although I did get paid.

The paying customer is always right.

I did a job 20+ years ago two IDF both less then 200 feet from MDF. IT wanted 6 fibers to each IDF. While I was at it I pulled in some Cat5 between cabinets. Last time I was there about 3 years ago Cat 5 cables still in use and the fibers were still dark.


Back on topic Why install any copper over Cat 6 that what fiber is made for.

I bid a job for customer 2 years ago that we bid all Cat5e plenum back to one MDF on Second floor. All runs under 275' feet. General contractor has his EC bid it and we get a call to meet with GC and EC and owner. EC bid CAT 6 non-plenum (Plenum site) and just the cable running no terminations. I explained to owner and GC and EC that it is not necessary to go to Cat 6 and if he (Owner) wanted to we should go to CAT6A and put another closet in on each floor and further more pricing is not Apples to Apples because they are not quoting the same category of cable or the correct type of cable anyway and had to explain how pricing goes up on everything from cable, to jacks, to panels, to patch cables, etc. Also had to explain that I wouldn't warranty any of the cabling since we didn't do it end to end.

In the end we did all the work and the owner was very happy with our workmanship and the entire job.