The standards for structured cabling specify generic installation and design topologies characterized by a category or class of transmission performance. These standards are subsequently taken as reference in standards and are considered the minimum level of performance necessary to ensure the operation of applications.
The committees of the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) are leaders in the development of cabling standards. Members of these organizations work alongside application development committees to ensure that new cabling grades support the latest innovations in signal transmission technology.
Studies by these bodies made possible the development of category 6.A (class Ea in ISO standards), which offers a bandwidth of 500 MHz and—unlike category 6—has an exclusive application for this 10GBASE-T. Category 6.A offers 10Gbps over a 4-pair cable and is recommended as the minimum cabling grade capable of supporting the rigors of the cabling environment; additionally, it supports the 10GBASE-T application when it needs to be upgraded.
Research on the 10 Gigabit Ethernet protocol showed that bandwidth is not a sufficient performance criterion for high-speed transmissions. The studies detected a phenomenon: interference coming from the pairs inside the cable, from the pairs of neighboring cables, produced at the nearby ports of the patch panels, and between the ports of the telecommunications outlets.
This phenomenon was named alien crosstalk, typically measured in the laboratory and whose evaluation conditions are specified by standard. The test consists of measuring the noise coming from the six adjacent cables on the victim cable. These studies revealed that cabling systems that do not meet the requirements to eliminate or reduce alien crosstalk fail in high-speed data transmission.
For this reason, this aspect became very important when choosing a cabling system and must be taken into account—along with bandwidth—so that everything together is optimal and covers the performance needs.
For more information on how to choose the appropriate cable for your application, contact IT USA Services.