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Cat 6A
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Cat 6A is a 500MHz cabling system which can be UTP, FTP or SFTP and was designed to meet the criteria for 10 Gigabit applications, whilst Cat 7A is a 1000MHz cabling solution which has been developed to support the emerging 40 Gigabit Ethernet systems.
The TIA/EIA have stated that 10GbaseT should be possible over existing Cat 6 installations up to 37m, and if the environment is not susceptible to Alien Crosstalk noise, even up to 55m. Running 10 Gigabit Ethernet over Cat 6 is said to be unreliable at more than approximately 55m, so the development of Cat 6A was driven by the need to reliably run 10GBaseT up to 100m. Here are the bandwidth and construction comparisons for the various types of network cables: Cat 5e up to 100MHz - UTP or FTP Cat 6 up to 250MHz - UTP, FTP or SFTP Cat 6a up to 500MHz - UTP, FTP or SFTP Cat 7 up to 600MHz - SFTP Cat 7a up to 1000MHz - SFTP Key to cable construction: UTP - Unshielded Twisted Pair FTP - Foil screened Twisted Pair SFTP - Shielded and Foil screened Twisted Pair (an overall braided screen within which the individual pairs have a foil screen)
Testing Cat 6A The new standards for Cat 6A include testing for the effects of Alien Crosstalk. Now, I don't like to blow
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Noise cancellation doesn't work! Networking hardware at the ends of a cable use digital signal processing (DSP) techniques to cancel out interference from other pairs in the same cable. Transceivers can do this because they know what data is being sent over the cable so they cancel out any crosstalk which is known to be from a different pair. With Alien Crosstalk however, the receiving hardware has no idea what data is being sent on a different cable so eliminating Alien Crosstalk is not possible using DSP noise cancelling techniques. One of the more effective ways to eliminate Alien Crosstalk is to use a shielded cabling system, this will drain away any interference coming from within a cable and shield against interference from adjacent cables. Another consideration is that cables are more susceptible to crosstalk the nearer you get to the point of termination, so care within the cabinet to keep the cables separated as far as possible at the back of the patch panels will further reduce the risk of interference. The patch leads themselves can contribute to Alien Crosstalk so not being so neat in this area could be advantageous, also the use of screened patch leads will further reduce Alien crosstalk, even on a UTP cabling plant.
How do we test for Alien Crosstalk and certify a cabling system to meet 10 Gigabit performance? This is where it gets a little complicated!
Essentially we need to run NEXT and ACR tests on both ends of a cable whilst simultaneously sending signals down some of the other cables in the same wiring loom. Then we need to measure any crosstalk coming from the other cables over the full frequency spectrum of the test range. A full explaination on this can be found in the eBook.
So we have Cat 6A running at 500MHz and capable of supporting 10 gigabit Ethernet, surely this is now fast enough for any desktop application? Well, yes it is . . . . in theory! I read an article years ago by Paul Andres who was at the time the Managing Director of MOD-TAP World Corporation. In it he discussed the 'Need For Speed' and went into great detail about the fastest
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Cat 7A There are two types of connector for Cat 7A systems. The first is the version developed by Nexans (IEC 60603-7-71, also available from other manufacturers) and is known as the GG45. This type is backwards compatible with the RJ45 by the clever use of switch within the jack that changes the pole layout from 8 contacts in a line (as in the RJ45), to four pairs of contacts at the corners. Ingenious!
This means that the existing RJ45 type leads and hardware can be used on the cabling plant, and when the hardware is updated all that is required to go to full 1000MHz is to change the patch leads. This seems to be an ideal solution as they are capable of pair isolation for the emerging high-speed technologies. There is a wealth of information for the GG45 on the Nexans website.
The other type of connector is the 'non-backwards compatible' version often referred to as 'TERA' (IEC 61076-3-104). These have the contacts arranged as four pairs of contacts at the four corners to achieve maximum pair isolation. This type also has a neat trick, the pairs can be used individually for different applications, so by using single pair, two pair or all four pair plugs, multiple applications can be supported over one cable. This obviously has a cost benefit, especially when cabling to the desk as one cable can support 100Mb Ethernet, a phone and a video channel. For more information go to the Siemons website and look for their info on Category 7/7A - TERA.
The ISO recommends the GG45 as the preferred connector for Data Centre installations, but allows the 'TERA' to be used where cable sharing is more important than backwards compatibility.
An Important Note. Data Centres consume a lot of power, so there is a movement toward making them more efficient. One of the ways being discussed is to reduce the need for DSP, this is quite a considerable overhead on signal transmissions and adds to the heat generated by all networking equipment within the data center.
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