Ensure Smooth Data Transmission with CAT 6A Cables
Posted by Elam Cabling Group on January 8th, 2021
Industry standards that previously recommended Category 6A cabling only for data centres now recommend it for most LAN installations as well, due to applications demanding higher performance, more bandwidth, faster speeds and low latency.
Category 6 cables support Gigabit Ethernet data rates of 1 gigabit per second. They can accommodate 10 Gigabit Ethernet connections over a limited distance—164 feet for a single cable. Cat 6 cable contains four pairs of copper wire and uses all the pairs for signalling in order to obtain its high level of performance.
The Category 6 Augmented cable standard, or Cat 6A, was created to further improve the performance of Cat 6 Ethernet cables. For many years, most people used a Cat5 cable to connect to the internet. This kind of cable is made up of four twisted pairs of copper wire. You probably have a few Cat5 cables in your office. CAT 6 cable contains four pairs of copper wire and uses all the pairs for signalling in order to obtain its exceptional level of performance.
Compared to CAT6, CAT6A has more and tighter twists, with more insulation to reduce crosstalk. In addition, CAT6A is backwards compatible with CAT5e and CAT6 technology. Although the latter is true, speeds are always correlated and will perform based on the lowest rated cable or connecter installed in the arrangement.
There are numerous benefits of using CAT6 data cabling over CAT5e cabling systems. In the early years of CAT6 data cabling, it was a luxury to use this type of data cabling because it was nearly 50% more expensive, making it less cost-efficient. But, as time has progressed, the cost of CAT6 has flattened tremendously.
Some benefits of CAT6 data cabling over CAT5e are as follows: higher bandwidth and higher data transfer rates. As a result, CAT6 is now the staple when it comes to new data cabling applications. CAT6 can support 1 Gbps network speeds easily. In addition, CAT6 supports the higher data rates of 10 Gbps.
CAT 6A data cabling is becoming the most cost-effective choice for businesses because it is proven to be a reliable system. CAT 6A network cable elements are used in Class EA networks systems. You can also identify shielded and unshielded cables as F/UTP (shielded) and U/UTP (unshielded) cable.
One of the recent additions to the CAT-6A shielded cabling is a U/FTP cable. This cable configuration has all four pairs individually shielded, rather than an outer foil shield. The overall test results and performance of this cabling has been quite impressive.
By installing top quality CAT 6A cables in your network, you are preventing the need to perform multiple upgrades each time you get high performance and reliable equipment. There will come a time when you will need to upgrade your switches and the new switches will require i. Save your time and money by upgrading your existing network with CAT 6A cables.
