Tech brief examines shielded vs. unshielded Category 6A cabling

"You have decided upon a Category 6A infrastructure to support your network needs," begins a recent technical white paper from Hitachi Cable America Inc. "You realize that 10 Gigabit Ethernet is your application of choice or you grasp that at the rate that throughput demand is growing, not preparing for 10 Gigabit Ethernet will significantly hinder future network upgrades."

The technical brief continues, "But now, another decision is waiting to be made. Should you go with an unshielded Category 6A solution or a shielded one? What are the main advantages and disadvantages of each?" The company says the purpose of the white paper is to identify the strengths and weaknesses of each type of Cat 6A solution, so that appropriate design/install decisions can be made.

A figure contained in the brief shows the difference in alien crosstalk performance between a leading Category 6A UTP cable and the shielded version (F/UTP) from the same manufacturer. Since a wider margin to the limit line is desirable, the F/UTP Category 6A cable is shown clearly to have more margin or headroom (performance beyond the standard) than the UTP cable does.

View/Download the white paper.