Hello,

Just looking for opinions for Cat6 250mhz vs 550mhz.
Thanks
Chris

Regardless of the standards, the cost of the equipment will likely determine the user's requirements.Gigabit has been around for some time, but 100 Base T had been pretty much dominant networking standard until recently as the costs of Gigabit switches comes down.
Cat 6A 550mhz is really for future proofing, but the costs for the 10G Base T networking equipment will dictate the demand for Cat 6A, or Cat 7 cables more then the costs of the installation. I bet it will be 10 years + before it becomes common enough for people to be requesting it.

Just like fiber to the desktop. No one want's it until the hardware $$$ ⬇

Gigabit ethernet to the desktop has actually been the norm in all small office networks I have been seeing now for years. Keep in mind that it was designed to run on plain old CAT 5e cabling.

On the other hand, 10 gig on copper has been around for over a decade now, and I still have yet to see it adopted anywhere for desktop PC connections. This seems to be primarily for the exact reason that newtecky cited: It costs to damned much, with no real gain in the performance of actual real-world applications. It is also too flaky in the reliability department, in my opinion.

Ten years is a long time. Ten years ago I asked on here if anyone was actually seeing 10 gig to the desktop being deployed anywhere in their world. I am still waiting.

Ten years is a long time. But I am patient.

That thread quickly degenerated into a debate about giving the customer what they wanted, whether they actually need it or not...

I have seen wi-fi access points that "require" a 10 gig copper connection back to the router, but have never installed one. So yes, presumably people are using 10 gig on copper. But people who really need that bitrate should be using fiber anyway, as many here have already pointed out over the years.

Jim
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Yes, I remember threads from ten years ago. In detail.

The one place that I have seen 10 gig to the desktop they were pushing large cad files around so they actually made use of the 10 gig. The reason that some wi-fi points require a 10 gig connection is that they are trying to push a lot of data to a lot of wireless devices.