Cat6a or Cat7a

[Thepixelbro]

I'm building a new network demanding building. Should I use cat6 or cat7 as networking, and if I have the money should I put cat7a and is it backwards compatible?

[TheProfessionalAmateurs]

It depends how far you want to run the ethernet cables. You can make a longer run with cat 7 compared to cat 6, and cat 7 has shielding around each wire twist to reduce interference. Also, cat 7a is backwards compatible, but it's pretty much the same thing as cat 7.

[manikyath]

the question is why?

 

unless you're doing some kind of enterprise network (which... at that point you should know what the hell you're doing) cat5e should be just fine for a decent few more years, and cat6A will more than likely be the last twisted pair you'll ever be in the home. (hinting at a potential new standard in the future, with the cost of fiber going down and the cost of newer twisted pair standards going up i'd see homes going fiber)

[mariushm]

Cat6a is enough even for 10gbps, I don't see why you'd need to go with Cat7

You can get all kinds of cat6a cables, with extra insulation around each pair and/or all pairs, with steel wire inside or without, all kinds of them. 

I'd say don't waste your budget on Cat7 when Cat6a is good enough.

 

ps. Oh, after a bit of thinking ... some say Cat7 but really mean Cat6a  ... Cat6 works with up to 10gbps but only for small distances and in small bundles of cables (let's say 5 cables, distances smaller than around 30 meters). Cat6a is good for 10gbps up to 100+ meters and can be bundled in bigger bundles of cables.

[manikyath]

3 minutes ago, mariushm said:

Cat6a is enough even for 10gbps, I don't see why you'd need to go with Cat7

You can get all kinds of cat6a cables, with extra insulation around each pair and/or all pairs, with steel wire inside or without, all kinds of them. 

I'd say don't waste your budget on Cat7 when Cat6a is good enough.

 

i'd go a step further and say just go cat5e if you're not specificly building a 10Gbit network.

 

cat5e is so cheap you could just buy a roll and run 2-3 cables to every place, and leave them sitting until you have more devices to hook up.

 

and *honestly* the majority of devices you have at the home cant really make use of much more than gigabit either way.

[Thepixelbro]

10 minutes ago, TheProfessionalAmateurs said:

It depends how far you want to run the ethernet cables. You can make a longer run with cat 7 compared to cat 6, and cat 7 has shielding around each wire twist to reduce interference. Also, cat 7a is backwards compatible, but it's pretty much the same thing as cat 7.

 

My biggest concern is the distance I'll need to run the cables. Will cat7a be better than cat7 distance wise? 

[manikyath]

1 minute ago, Thepixelbro said:

My biggest concern is the distance I'll need to run the cables. Will cat7a be better than cat7 distance wise? 

what is the distance you're talking about, what is the enviroment they're in, and what's the speed required?

[Thepixelbro]

1 minute ago, manikyath said:

i'd go a step further and say just go cat5e if you're not specificly building a 10Gbit network.

 

cat5e is so cheap you could just buy a roll and run 2-3 cables to every place, and leave them sitting until you have more devices to hook up.

 

and *honestly* the majority of devices you have at the home cant really make use of much more than gigabit either way.

 

I'm setting up a building with gigabit internet, so I'm trying to make sure I take advantage of every sweet bite.

[Thepixelbro]

2 minutes ago, manikyath said:

what is the distance you're talking about, what is the enviroment they're in, and what's the speed required?

Around 100 meters, 
Indoors running into a humid outdoor environment

speed is a gigabit

[manikyath]

1 minute ago, Thepixelbro said:

I'm setting up a building with gigabit internet, so I'm trying to make sure I take advantage of every sweet bite.

cat5e. that's all you'll ever need, its dirt cheap to the point you can even run multiple cables everywhere.

 

in fact, they sell rolls of "double cat5e" that's basicly two cables fused together.

[manikyath]

1 minute ago, Thepixelbro said:

Around 100 meters, 
Indoors running into a humid outdoor environment

speed is a gigabit

- thats not long

- thats not a problem category wise

- cat5e.

[dalekphalm]

15 minutes ago, Thepixelbro said:

I'm building a new network demanding building. Should I use cat6 or cat7 as networking, and if I have the money should I put cat7a and is it backwards compatible?

Cat 7, if terminated with 8P8C connectors ("RJ-45" connectors), are backwards compatible, yes.

 

However, I question the need to use Cat 7 cables at all (Cat 7, or Cat 7a). Neither are recognized by the TIA/EIA, but is still an ISO standard (different standards body).

 

Cat 7 runs at 600 MHz, but Cat 6a runs at 500 MHz, which is pretty close. Both are capable of 10GBaseT at 100m length. Both are capable of 10/100/1000 Mbps backwards compatibility. Cat 6a is cheaper. Both are available in a multitude of cable types, including shielded, outdoor, etc.

 

The 40GBaseT upcoming spec is going to rely on Category 8 Cables with 8P8C connectors, which supposedly will be recognized by the TIA/EIA, and thus be the official successor to Cat 6a. Cat 8 cables run up to 2000 MHz, and will provide 40GBaseT speeds over 100m.

 

I would just get the Cat 6a and not worry about it. Even if you want to enable 10GBaseT, Cat 6a is 100% suitable for that.

[dalekphalm]

5 minutes ago, Thepixelbro said:

Around 100 meters, 
Indoors running into a humid outdoor environment

speed is a gigabit

At 100m, Cat 5e, Cat 6, Cat 6a, Cat 7, and Cat 7a are all capable of 1GBaseT (1Gbps/Gigabit) speeds. With the higher spec cables, you'll have less crosstalk and EMI/other interference, but that will only make so much difference.

 

I would personally install Cat 6a. Gives you freedom to update the equipment to 10Gig in the future without having to re-run any cables, and it's more than capable enough. Cat 7/7a is a waste for the extra money.

[Thepixelbro]

6 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Cat 7, if terminated with 8P8C connectors ("RJ-45" connectors), are backwards compatible, yes.

 

However, I question the need to use Cat 7 cables at all (Cat 7, or Cat 7a). Neither are recognized by the TIA/EIA, but is still an ISO standard (different standards body).

 

Cat 7 runs at 600 MHz, but Cat 6a runs at 500 MHz, which is pretty close. Both are capable of 10GBaseT at 100m length. Both are capable of 10/100/1000 Mbps backwards compatibility. Cat 6a is cheaper. Both are available in a multitude of cable types, including shielded, outdoor, etc.

 

The 40GBaseT upcoming spec is going to rely on Category 8 Cables with 8P8C connectors, which supposedly will be recognized by the TIA/EIA, and thus be the official successor to Cat 6a. Cat 8 cables run up to 2000 MHz, and will provide 40GBaseT speeds over 100m.

 

I would just get the Cat 6a and not worry about it. Even if you want to enable 10GBaseT, Cat 6a is 100% suitable for that.

 

 

 

WOW! Thank you for the information, I had no idea cat7 was not recognized by the TIA/EIA. And if I ran a cat6a ethernet for around 250 meters will I still be able to use my gigabit speed? And if i would have around 70 devices connected to the network will cat6a be able to handle it?

[dalekphalm]

6 minutes ago, Thepixelbro said:

WOW! Thank you for the information, I had no idea cat7 was not recognized by the TIA/EIA. And if I ran a cat6a ethernet for around 250 meters will I still be able to use my gigabit speed? And if i would have around 70 devices connected to the network will cat6a be able to handle it?

Erm with ANY Category Cable (That includes Category 3 (phone lines), Category 5, 5e, 6, 6a, 7, or 7a), speeds after a distance of 100m cannot be guaranteed in any form.

 

If you need to run a cable 250m, you'll need to do one of the following:

- Use some sort of Repeater after every 100m (Examples include using simply a regular, desktop grade, Gigabit switch, or a purpose built Cat 6a Ethernet signal Repeater)

- Use Fibre Optic backbone cables for any length over 100m - eg:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10_Gigabit_Ethernet#Physical_layer_modules

Something like the 10GBASE-SR Fibre Optic standard, with SFP+ connectors, using serial multi-mode fibre optic cable, is capable of 10Gigabit over distances of up to 400m, depending on the cable used.

 

If you only care about ensuring Gigabit Speeds (1Gbps) and not worrying about 10Gig future proofing, then you can get away with using cheaper/less expensive Fibre Optic cables:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigabit_Ethernet#Varieties

1000BASE‑SX or 1000BASE‑LX offer Gigabit speeds over distances past 250m (Both maxing out around 550m).

 

So, if you're wiring up a building properly, I would do this:

 

For any runs that are less than 100m long, use Cat 6a. For any runs that must be longer than 100m, I would use a Fibre backbone. You can use Fibre Media Converters (little boxes with an Ethernet port on one end, and fibre optic ports on the other end) to convert a standard Cat 6a cable input into a Fibre Optic Output. You put one of these Fibre Media Converters on either end of the long run, and just jack it back into your Ethernet network on either side.

 

An even better solution would be to buy Switches that include the Fibre Converter module built into them. These would generally be enterprise grade switches, and will sometimes have a couple of 10Gig or 1Gig Fibre Ports on them. You might still need a Media Converter on the other side of the run (Unless you put another switch w/ fibre ports there too).

 

Basically, my Motto when it comes to this kind of stuff, is if you're going to go through with the time and cost of doing it, you might as well do it properly. If you actually need those over 100m runs, use Fibre. But only use Fibre where needed, since it's quite a bit of a cost increase to use it everywhere, and fibre is significantly less durable/more fragile.

[mariushm]

I agree with dalekphalm, for anything over 100 meters go with something else like fiber or point to point wireless if latency isn't an issue and there's direct visibility between the locations (see ubiquiti's products shown here on linustechtips, video embedded at the bottom)

 

Fiber up to around 500 meters is cheap ... well cheap for fiber you can use two media converters to push 1gbps onto a multimode fiber and convert it back at the other end so basically to the whole system it's going to look like a plain regular network cable. Media converters can be often cheaper than buying switching with optical ports, you're looking at something like 50$ for one media converter so total of 100$... but you don't pay hundreds extra for a switch with optical ports

Chances are you're going to buy a cable with multiple strands of fiber, so in theory you could use multiple fibers and do some port trunking / teaming to get more than 1gbps between locations. Or of course, you could pay the big bucks to get something like 25gbps or 40gbps.

 

Otherwise, I'd say stick with copper. Just a year or so ago, people were saying anyone who wants more than 10gbps on copper is dreaming, too expensive, too difficult, but we already have 40gbps on copper cat7/cat7a and chips will only get better with time.