Understand The Difference Between Ftp Cat6 Cables Types

There are two main types of FTP CAT6 Cables that comply with these standards, shielded and unshielded, commonly referred to as F/UTP and U/UTP.

Some people use the terms FTP and UTP to distinguish shielded and unshielded cables, but according to the ISO/IEC standard, the first letter indicates the type of overall shielding, and the latter letter indicates the type of shielding for each pair and balance element. Therefore, F/UTP and U/UTP are the easiest ways to distinguish cable types.

CAT6A U/UTP means that the cable is composed of 4 pairs of unshielded twisted pairs without external shielding.

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

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

CAT 6A U/UTP is constructed in a certain way to help minimize crosstalk and ANEXT. This includes larger conductors (minimum 23 AWG), tighter stranding, additional internal space, internal dividers between wire pairs, and thicker outer sheaths. These features usually increase the outer diameter of the cable.

CAT6A F/UTP is constructed in a similar way, but it contains an outer foil shield under the outer cable sheath.

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

If you use shielded F/UTP CAT6A cables in your installation, you should use compatible shielded connectors. Similarly, unshielded cables should be used with unshielded connectors.