[colug-432] cat6 or cat6a?

[Stephen Potter]

On 4/11/2013 11:33 PM, Rick Hornsby wrote:
> 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.

Keep in mind when you are doing things like running cable through walls, 
you want to future proof and plan for resale.  Although you may not be 
planning on installing and running 10G, the next owner might.  Determine 
the cost differential of the materials (cable and connectors) and how 
much extra work you think it will be and go from there.  When we were 
having Cat6/Cat6A discussions with clients at my previous job, we often 
found there was negligible difference in the materials costs, the price 
difference was the labor.

-spp