Ideal Industries Inc. (www.idealindustries.com) has developed a LAN cabling tester that certifies Category 7 systems, and will unveil the product at the BICSI Winter Conference later this month in Orlando, FL.
While "Category 5e is the cabling type installed most frequently," says Doug Waggoner, general manager of Ideal's DataComm Division, "we are also very serious about Category 6 and Category 7. Cabling accounts for 10% of network costs, and cabling is the second-most-permanent part of a network installation."
Waggoner believes that "savvy users will install the best system they can get-and we have developed a LAN certifier that is ready for Category 7."
The Telecommunications Industry Association, he adds, has taken longer than some anticipated to develop the specifications for Category 6 cabling. "The standard may be finalized sometime this year; but meanwhile, cable and connector vendors are not standing still. They are developing systems they call 'Category 6-plus,' able to handle frequencies between 400 and 450 MHz. Europe is pushing much harder for Category 7 specifications, through the International Organization for Standardization and its Class F/Category 7 standard."
The ClassF/Cat 7 standard specifies performance to 600 MHz.
What end-user applications will drive demand for "Category 6-plus" and Category 7 systems? "Converging information over IP networks," says Ideal product manager Rich Helstrom. "The convergence of video, voice, and data on a single network is creating demand for higher-bandwidth systems."
The Category 7 product "will be recognizable" to users who are familiar with the Wavetek LANTek/LT series of testers, Helstrom says. Last year, Ideal acquired the Wavetek LAN testing division from Acterna.
-Patrick McLaughlin
