What is CAT6 Cabling?

CAT6 cabling employs four pairs, just like CAT5 generation cables. CAT6 fully utilizes the four pairs and thus supports Gigabit Ethernet, indicating it will reach broadcastings up to 1 gigabit per second (1Gbps). There is also a CAT6a category, which is an enhanced CAT6 and supports up to a whopping 10 gigabit per second.

This faster pace (10 x faster than most normal connections) offers stable broadcasts for rising traffic needs, like IPTV, HD Video Streaming, and of chief concern Business Phone Systems, which need high-speed connections because of the rapidity of calls.

You must take into consideration that the greatest length accepted by Cat6 cabling is 330 ft (100 meters) when connecting normal 10/100/1000 devices. In large deployments, this is obviously something you must bear in mind , or you are likely to run into problems that can become hard to diagnose. Also, specifications for CAT6 are more stringent than before, therefore if you choose to work on your own cabling and termination, you will want to steer clear of things like bending the cables too much, or pulling off the outer jacket too far. If you are unable to test your own construction , you would be better off to buy   pre-assembled certified cables.

To make your own cable, it is surprisingly just like creating a CAT5 cable. Tangibly , the chief difference, is that CAT6 needs to be fabricated with a “load block”, which is just a perforated bit of plastic that guides the sets of cables from the stripped cable. As a result , the ends of the wires are simpler to put where they belong ; this is due to the fact that the “load block” will fit into the modular coupling which will drive the pairs into their spot . Yet again , finish up by crimping the connector. For your own cabling, you do not need to use a specific standard, you only need to be sure that whatever colour arrangement you do for one end, should be mirrored for the other.

You may also observe that CAT6 crossover cables are rare. This is because all gigabit Ethernet devices (as well as nearly all of the recent 10/100 devices) are auto-MDIX, meaning; they can feel if the communication needs to be carried out in crossover mode, ensuring that they carry out the cross “internally”. You will only need a crossover CAT6 cable to connect with older 10/100 devices, that do not work with auto-MDIX. If so , you can also utilize a CAT5 cable, as your 10/100/1000 device will drop down to 100mbit/s to communicate.

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