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.

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.

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."