Standards
What is Structured Cabling?
A carefully implemented structured cabling system provides a fully integrated method of transferring data, voice and video signals around a building. Such an infrastructure ensures reliable performance and the flexibility to meet the requirements for future growth and change. A structured cabling system designed in accordance with international standards will ensure predictable performance across a broad range of connected equipment. Currently, there is a fifty-fifty split between the installation category 5 enhanced and category 6 cabling systems.
What is Category 5 Enhanced?
Category 5 enhanced (Category 5e) defines the performance of a cable infrastructure capable of supporting a network speed of 1000 Mbps (Gigabit Ethernet). Generally; this is implemented using Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP) cable. Gigabit Ethernet uses all four pairs to transmit data simultaneously. Category 5e specifies a comprehensive series of tests that measure the suitability of a cabling system to transmitting data on all four pairs, particularly with respect to cross talk and return loss, enabling the demands of Gigabit Ethernet and of course less demanding network protocols to be met.
What about Category 6 & 7?
The standards for Category 6 and 7 are well established; in fact they are already being superseded by the next generation of cabling system performance requirements. Category 6 is capable of a transmission frequency of 200 MHz and uses UTP or FTP cable and RJ45 connectors. As with Category 5 and Category 5E before it, Category 6 cabling system are constructed from their components compliant parts to produce and end-to-end channel that delivers the performance necessary to minimise the bit error rate of the transmitted signals.
Category 7 uses fully shielded cables (overall shield and individually shielded pairs) and a new connector type in order to achieve 600 MHz capabilities. Whilst this connector is compatible with the standard RJ45, the use of an RJ45 will not deliver Category 7 channel performance. Since Category 7 is a shielded only solution its acceptance in our global market place is restricted to those environments where extremely high levels of electromagnetic interference (EMI) are present such as industrial installations, or certain European countries where shielded cabling systems are the norm.
The immediate future (things keep on changing)
The IT industry is never inactive, the networking industry in never inactive, and nor too is the cabling industry. To be able to deliver the network protocols of tomorrow the cabling industry needs to be one step ahead. Without the installed base of correctly specified cabling infrastructure, the next generation of networking protocol with only ever exist in the imagination and laboratories of its developers. Augmented Category 6 (AC6) is the next generation of structured cabling components and systems. Being developed to support 10G BaseT over both fibre and copper using UTP and FTP cabling systems, this cabling standard specifies the performance parameters of numerous measurements, some of which are completely new, up to 500MHz. The principle addition to the AC6 standard is the inclusion of and alien cross talk measurement. This new test is responsible for determining the levels of external noise originating not from within a single cable element, but from all adjacent cabling elements. This new noise model has become significant for AC6 cabling systems due to the higher frequencies of the signals being transmitted. This highly complex cable-to-cable relationship severely increases the complexity of testing components, permanent links and channels in the laboratory and makes the field testing of these parameters a very arduous task.
| Bandwidth |
Standard |
Cable |
Connectors |
Link |
Channel |
| 16MHz |
ISO |
Category 3 |
Category 3 |
Class C |
Class C |
| |
TIA |
Category 3 |
Category 3 |
Category 3 |
Category 3 |
| 20MHz |
ISO |
Category 4 |
Category 4 |
|
|
| |
TIA |
Category 4 |
Category 4 |
Category 4 |
Category 4 |
| 100MHz |
ISO |
Category 5 |
Category 5 |
Class D |
Class D |
| |
TIA |
Category 5E |
Category 5E |
Category 5E |
Category 5E |
| 200MHz |
ISO |
Category 6 |
Category 6 |
Category 6 |
Category 6 |
| |
TIA |
Category 6 |
Category 6 |
Category 6 |
Category 6 |
| 600MHz |
ISO |
Category 7 |
Category 7 |
Class F |
Class F |