Poll: TIA approval will boost Cat 6 installations
Eighty-four percent of the respondents to an online poll conducted by Cabling Installation & Maintenance over the course of 11 days said they will specify Category 6 systems now that the Telecommunications Industry Association (www.tiaonline.org) has officially approved specifications.
Eighty-four percent of the respondents to an online poll conducted by Cabling Installation & Maintenance over the course of 11 days said they will specify Category 6 systems now that the Telecommunications Industry Association (www.tiaonline.org) has officially approved specifications.
The poll, conducted on the Cabling Installation & Maintenance Web site (www.cable-install.com), asked: "In early June, the TIA approved the Category 6 standard. Are you more likely to specify a Cat 6 system now that it's approved than you were before approval?"
Forty-seven percent of those who responded said yes, 37% said they had been specifying it before approval, but 16% said they still would not specify Category 6.
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The Category 6 standard, which specifies a useable bandwidth of 200 MHz and performance values to 250 MHz, was in development for several years before final approval. But as promised, the TIA delivered an interoperable and backward-compatible Category 6 specification in June.
Masood Shariff, chair of the TIA TR-42.7 Telecommunications Copper Cabling Systems Committee, acknowledged the work of several other TR-42.7 Committee members:
- Valerie Rybinski of Hitachi Cable Manchester, who is the editor of the document, vice chair of TR-42.7, and chair of the TR-42.7.1 Working Group.
- Paul Vanderlaan of Belden and Trent Hayes of Avaya, who co-chaired the TR-42.7.2 Working Group that developed all Cat 6 cable specifications.
- Shadi AbuGazaleh of Hubbell Premise Wiring, who chaired the balance task group that developed cable and connecting hardware balance specifications.
- Henriecus Koeman of Fluke Networks, who chaired the modeling task group that developed the models used to add component requirements into channel and permanent link requirements.
- Sterling Vaden of Superior Modular Products, who developed many of the test fixtures used to measure Category 6 connecting hardware.
Shariff concluded, "I have to mention the laudable efforts of Paul Kish of NORDX/CDT, David Hess of Nexans, and Wayne Larsen of Avaya, who chairs the connecting hardware measurement task group that developed detailed measurement procedures to guarantee Category 6 interoperability and backward compatibility."
