Choosing Cat 7 Cable - The new kid in town

In today’s world, the need to transfer vast amounts of data at high speeds is required. In many large datacentres, fibre is sometimes used to handle this task but the price of expensive optics and other factors might require a copper based solution.

Make way for Cat 7 cables!

Category 7’s most notable quality is its capability of handle speeds of up to 10 Gbps over 100 meters, especially when compared to Cat6 and Cat5e’s 1 Gbps speeds over the same distance. During testing, speeds of up to 40 Gbps have been measured over a distance of 50 meters, and up to 100 Gbps over 15 meters. And, Cat7 cables are able to deliver those high speeds at a higher frequency of 600 MHz, as opposed to Cat6a’s max frequency of 500 MHz. This means that a Cat7 cable will be able to transfer data faster than any of the previous category cables, making it an ideal option for people wiring smart homes, data centres, large enterprise networks or anywhere else a high-speed wired system is required.

Apart from the question of speed, Cat7’s other benefits of note include the extensive shielding of its twisted pairs which can considerably reduce signal attenuation and improve noise resistance. The individual pairs in these cables are shielded with an additional layer of shielding over the whole cable.

Cat7 cables are also very strong and durable, and generally have a longer lifespan that Cat5 and Cat6 cables. And while, admittedly, Cat7 cables can be more expensive than other category cables, that price is often offset by their increased performance and overall resilience.

Cat7 has a large array of qualities. Also being backward compatible with traditional Cat5 and Cat6 cables, Category 7 might well be the right choice for your next wired installation. If your application is outdoors or in an industrial environment, check out our new rugged, Cat7 cables with 10 Gig rating as well.