Cat 7 good enough?

[-warheart-]

Hi guys, i have a question for you network experts out there.

My parents are currently adding a floor to their house and the electrician is currently wiring the network cables. According to my father the electrician talked about installing Cat 7 cables, and now he(my father) asked me whether those are good enough or not and i must say I'm not really sure. I don't know much about networks at all, so if somebody could tell me if the cables have sufficient bandwidth and shielding i'd greatly appreciate it.

PS: I did some research and those cables seem to be called class F in some english speaking countries. Just thought i'd mention it,might help you guys understand.

 

[hmmblah]

Cat 7 is more than good enough. Why though? It's super expensive and won't be used at it's potential for years to come. A spool of 1000 feet is about $1000. Cat 6 is what he should be going with and is about 1/10th of the cost. It's much cheaper and can support up to 10Gb. Most likely though, you would be running at 1Gb for a home or business network.

 

[-warheart-]

Okay thx for the quick reply My main concern was that those cables wouldn't be shielded well enough and that he would lose a lot of bandwidth since they are going to be fairly long.I dont think he will mind if the cables are a little overkill since the networking doesn't seem to cost much anyway and the installation would be future proof. But i'll tell him what you said so he can decide for himself.

Thx again^^

 

[sheroo]

Definitely agree with hmmblah. My mate, who is a network engineer, has just wired up his new house with cat6. Cat5e & Cat6 are very similar. With Cat6 you get a plastic separator in the cable to reduce interference. Cat6 specification apparently only covers the cable itself not the termination equipment.

 

[hmmblah]

Okay thx for the quick reply My main concern was that those cables wouldn't be shielded well enough and that he would lose a lot of bandwidth since they are going to be fairly long.I dont think he will mind if the cables are a little overkill since the networking doesn't seem to cost much anyway and the installation would be future proof. But i'll tell him what you said so he can decide for himself.

Thx again^^

A single run cannot exceed 100m. Shielding won't help that. When you go over 100m, you will get bandwidth loss. I can't see a normal house having a run longer than that though so shouldn't have anything to worry about.

I've never seen cat 7 in person nor I have heard of anyone even using it. My suppliers don't even carry it yet. Very few wide are fiber runs even hit 10Gb which is the max of Cat 6. 1Gb is just catching on for home use, I don't see 10Gbit catching on for another 10 years at least. Most hard drives in home systems can't even saturate a 1Gb network much less a 10Gb network. I understand futureproofing, but really, can 6 right now would be futureproofing. Try to find a consumer switch/router that even does 10Gb.

Edit: I'd say if the costs were similar go for it, but if this installer has similar pricing on Cat 7 as they do on Cat 6, something is fishy. It's either mislabeled or not really Cat 7.

 

[-warheart-]

Just checked the cables that they already installed to make sure that they are cat 7 and found a pdf of the company that produces them ( http://img.herweck.de/getpdf.php?artikelnummer=011949), and they appear to be cat 7 indeed. Sry the pdf is in german so you probably wont be able to understand it. The only problem is that i haven't been able to find any prices on the net.. I guess i'm just gonna tell my father to have a look at the invoice from the electrician and then compare it to the prices of cat 6 cables, and then decide from there.

 

[hmmblah]

Cat 7 isn't rated as high as I thought. It's rated speed starts at 10Gb and goes up to 40, depending on the type. Each twisted pair is supposed to be shielded. Like I said above, I'd only go with it if the costs are really close, otherwise stick with Cat 6.

 

[dipzy]

Yep, that electrician is looking to get some serious money out of you.

As hmmblah said, its very, expensive and you won't hit those cat 7 speeds anytime soon, its still years of before we those being used in households.

Cat6 is the way to go, its here to stay for another decade or so, its much cheaper and it would save load of money

 

[KING_OF_SAND]

I didn't even know there was going to be a CAT7, I assumed they would just go fiber? either way my house was pre wired with CAT6

 

[Techie103]

Yep, that electrician is looking to get some serious money out of you.

As hmmblah said, its very, expensive and you won't hit those cat 7 speeds anytime soon, its still years of before we those being used in households.

Cat6 is the way to go, its here to stay for another decade or so, its much cheaper and it would save load of money

Expensive??? I picked up 100ft of Cat7 STP for $25 + shipping

Rosewill 100FT STP CAT7

I completely wired my house with CAT7 for around $100

 

[magicc8ball]

Cat 6 is more than enough and it is still being installed in corporate buildings as the standard. Hell CAT5e would still suffice but mine as well go with CAT6, the price difference is negligible. I just did a quick search and cat7 is 1000 bucks for a 1000ft roll not worth it at all.

 

[hmmblah]

Expensive??? I picked up 100ft of Cat7 STP for $25 + shipping

Rosewill 100FT STP CAT7

I completely wired my house with CAT7 for around $100

When you push 40Gbit across that, I'll believe it's CAT7. It's most likely only branded that and barely meets the specs. I'm sure it will do fine for 1Gbit, but beyond I'd be iffy on cheap cable. I've used high quality CAT5 (rated for 100Mbit) that was able to push 1Gbit, but I've seen cheap CAT6 not even able to do that.

Edit: I can buy a roll of 1000FT high quality CAT6 for around $125. So that CAT7 you listed is still double the price.

Roswill is a manufacturer of a tttoooooooonnnn of merchandise, so maybe they were able to hit an economy of scale with their CAT7 and offer it cheaper than everyone else.

 

[BaMb1N0]

where I live CAT 7 is considered "standard" when wiring houses or apartments - has been for years. you'll be able to put 10 Gbit/s through there when using S/FTP cables instead of S/STP. without alien crosstalk. but imho the cable is not the expensive thing. it's the installation.

but should you want to put 10Gbit/s through there it's the connectors' quality that matter. and that's where the price comes in. I'll be switching to 10GbE with my next home storage device which I think is due next year. hopefully there will be some affordable 10GBaseT switches available by then.

 

[Techie103]

Technically, CAT7 is simply improved CAT 6......CAT 6 can do 10GB/s over 50m at 300MHz. CAT 6A can do 10GB/s over 100m. CAT 7 further improves upon CAT 6A by running at 600MHz, whereas CAT 6A runs at 500MHz.

 

[hmmblah]

where I live CAT 7 is considered "standard" when wiring houses or apartments - has been for years. you'll be able to put 10 Gbit/s through there when using S/FTP cables instead of S/STP. without alien crosstalk. but imho the cable is not the expensive thing. it's the installation.

but should you want to put 10Gbit/s through there it's the connectors' quality that matter. and that's where the price comes in. I'll be switching to 10GbE with my next home storage device which I think is due next year. hopefully there will be some affordable 10GBaseT switches available by then.

What we consider normal CAT7 hasn't even been around for years. CAT7 Tera has been, but that's a totally different connector than what you are used to. I don't even think Cat7 was listed with TIA or IEEE until 2010. Could be wrong on that date though I don't really keep up on that.

Technically, CAT7 is simply improved CAT 6......CAT 6 can do 10GB/s over 50m at 300MHz. CAT 6A can do 10GB/s over 100m. CAT 7 further improves upon CAT 6A by running at 600MHz, whereas CAT 6A runs at 500MHz.

Not just technically, it is an improvement. Basically the same design, just added shielding on the pairs and more shielding on the sheath. Do you know if the gauge of the wire has changed at all? Most Cat6 I deal with is 23awg. Some of the cheaper stuff is thinner though.

 

[Techie103]

Not just technically, it is an improvement. Basically the same design, just added shielding on the pairs and more shielding on the sheath. Do you know if the gauge of the wire has changed at all? Most Cat6 I deal with is 23awg. Some of the cheaper stuff is thinner though.

It is the same design with improved shielding on the shielded pairs and cover/sheath. The type of cable (CAT 5,6,7) is dependent on the shielding the cable utilizes. The better the shielding, the less interference (measured in decibels (db)), resulting in higher theoretical transfer rates. I would think that the wires are still 23awg (slightly better than the 24awg utilized in CAT 5 & 6). Interestingly enough, CAT7 is comprised of Class F cable (600MHz, 10Gb/s over 50m). CAT 7a (augmented) will be manufactured to Class Fa (augmented) specs, operating at 1GHz and 40Gb/s over 50m and 100Gb over 15m.

 

[BaMb1N0]

What we consider normal CAT7 hasn't even been around for years. CAT7 Tera has been, but that's a totally different connector than what you are used to. I don't even think Cat7 was listed with TIA or IEEE until 2010. Could be wrong on that date though I don't really keep up on that.

Not just technically, it is an improvement. Basically the same design, just added shielding on the pairs and more shielding on the sheath. Do you know if the gauge of the wire has changed at all? Most Cat6 I deal with is 23awg. Some of the cheaper stuff is thinner though.

Class F (Cat 7) cables have been around since the late 90's, so has the standard (except US). 10GBaseT wasn't standardized by IEEE before 2006. CX4 connectors could even have been before that, I didn't look that up.

check this: http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/802/3/tutorial/july98/roos_070798.pdf

 

[hmmblah]

Class F (Cat 7) cables have been around since the late 90's, so has the standard (except US). 10GBaseT wasn't standardized by IEEE before 2006. CX4 connectors could even have been before that, I didn't look that up.

check this: http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/802/3/tutorial/july98/roos_070798.pdf

Thanks for the info. I still find it hard to believe that your Country is standard on Cat7. Seems overkill for what most Cat5+/6 is ran for in people's homes, telephone service. Maybe the US is just that far behind.