When to consider Category 6A for offices?

Not every office is created equal. Its future use and occupancy will determine which cabling infrastructure you will need. Get it wrong the first time and you are likely to have to re-cable or mitigate at some point to keep up with future demands. This post will look at where Category 6A cabling is recommended in new and upgraded buildings.

More devices, more bandwidth, more power

There are several things to consider when determining which cabling to install, and two of the most important are bandwidth and power. Certain devices, such as Wireless Access Points (WAP), require both high bandwidth and high power levels, whilst some need only low bandwidth but high power levels, such as door lock controls. And other applications may require high bandwidth but only low power levels.

So, when planning an IT upgrade of your building - or constructing one from the ground up – you will have to provision for how much bandwidth and power will be needed for present and future. A modern office requires a network infrastructure that can keep up with its occupants’ demands for faster internet, reach and storage, but also connect a growing number of IoT devices. The most common ones being VoIP phones, WAPs and CCTV cameras, which are increasingly powered through Power over Ethernet (PoE).  Building automation systems such as access control, lighting, HVAC, will typically be connected to the electricity net, although certain sensors, actuators and system controls will also be powered through PoE.

The nervous system of such intelligent buildings is a data network. One that connects these smart devices with the intelligent software that acts upon those data inputs. Today more and more systems run on, or are being adapted to, an Ethernet network rather than a proprietary system. But the network needs to support a variety of applications, each with their own bandwidth and PoE requirements. So, choosing the right cabling infrastructure for these smart buildings is key.

Category 6A cabling

New generation Wi-Fi technologies offer data rates exceeding 1Gbps and up to 10Gbps, which means that Category 5e or 6 cabling will not be able to support these speeds. With Category 6A’s up to 10Gbps transmission capacity your network won’t have any problem keeping up with a smart building’s present and future bandwidth demands.

In addition, the increasing need for some of these “smart building” devices to be powered through PoE provides a requirement for higher grade cabling: compared to lower Category and/or unshielded cables, Category 6A shielded cabling minimises the effect of temperature rise in cable bundles and hence covers the necessary reach for both the power and the data transmission.

We recommend LANmark-6A Category 6A cables and patch cords, with shielded snap-in connectors to guarantee a reliable network for today’s applications and to maximise flexibility for tomorrow’s needs.