Learn The Difference Between Cat6a Cable Types

FFTP CAT6A Cable, also known as Category 6A patch cord or Category 6a cable, is becoming the cable of choice for many structured cabling networks. CAT6A cables can achieve up to 10Gbps transmission.

CAT6A cables are specified for use in Class Ea networks and enable extremely high data rate transmissions up to 10Gbps and frequencies of 500Mhz.

In fact, CAT6A fully supports 10GBASE-T with channel lengths up to 100 meters, ensuring that it can support the fastest Ethernet applications.

There are 2 main types of CAT6A cables that conform to these standards, shielded and unshielded, commonly referred to as F/UTP and U/UTP.

Some people use the terms FTP and UTP to differentiate between shielded and unshielded cables, but according to the ISO/IEC standard, the first letter indicates the type of overall shielding, while the following letters indicate the type of shielding on each pair and balanced element. Therefore, F/UTP and U/UTP are the easiest way to distinguish cable types.

CAT6A U/UTP means the cable consists of 4 unshielded twisted pairs with no outer shield.

CAT6A F/UTP means that the cable consists of 4 unshielded twisted pairs, but it includes an outer foil shield. This is a shielded cable.

There are also S/FTP (shielded/foil twisted pair) cables, usually CAT7 cables, with four individually shielded pairs and an outer shield braid around all four pairs.

CAT 6A U/UTP is constructed in a way to help minimize crosstalk and ANEXT. This includes larger conductors (at least 23 AWG), tighter strands, extra internal space, internal dividers between pairs, and thicker outer jackets. These features typically increase the outer diameter of the cable.

CAT6A F/UTP is constructed in a similar fashion, but it includes an outer foil shield under the outer cable jacket.

The foil shield acts as a barrier to prevent EMI/RFI coupling from adjacent cables into the twisted pair. In effect, it reflects noise or interference from lights, machinery, and other EMI sources, as well as RFI from cell phones and wireless access points. Additionally, foil shielding prevents data signals from leaking out of the cable.

If you are using a shielded F/UTP CAT6A cable in your installation, you should use a compatible shielded connector. Likewise, unshielded cables should be used with unshielded connectors.