[colug-432] cat6 or cat6a?

[Rick Hornsby]

Bought a house and am going to be running ethernet from the basement, through finished walls.  Wireless is nice for phones but sucks for large file transfers.  The question is cat6 or cat6a?  Seems like cat6 would do, but like cat5e, it seems like cat6a is a better cable.  Bigger and heavier, which may mean harder to run through the walls.  I'm not planning to run anything over the cable except straight ethernet (no PoE, no POTS).

There are no $4000 (or $15k) 10G switches in my future, if that matters.

Is there an online outlet that is recommended for materials like keystones, patch panel, etc?  I have most or all of the tools, but it has been several years since I've done any wiring like this.  I have a pretty old and simple ethernet cable tester that worked okay for CAT5, once I figured out that the light pattern of a good cable wasn't what the directions said it should be.