Am I on the right track - Cat6 or Cat6a cable for home media network?

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Ponkwig

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Jun 21, 2011
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After spending a lot of time researching I think I've narrowed it down to using either Cat6 or Cat6a but I'm still unsure about whether certain requirements are necessary.

Before I put the flooring down in my house I want to install network, HDMI and coaxial cables. My goal is to have internet access via cable in nearly every room along with splitting HD TV/Video from the living room to the bedrooms and kitchen.

I've read that using HDMI cables is not recommended but HDMI over Ethernet instead due to reliability over distance and future-proofing. I can see the little boxes available for this using single Cat. HDBaseT seems to be the future although too expensive for me at the moment but hoping to use the installed cables when the prices come down.

I have read Cat7 cable is really for the commercial sector in terms of shielding and the extra speed is not necessary for a very very long time. I still did consider this but then read the connections are harder to implement and are much more expensive for the home.

Therefore and if I'm still on the right track, is it worth getting Cat6a over normal Cat6? The cable seems thicker and possibly not as good at tight bends. I know it's also better over longer distances but considering my longest cable might not run longer than 15 metres then would that factor become irrelevant?

Finally and something I only just noticed, should I make sure whichever cable I use is FTP and not UTP?

I know solid core is a must.

Thanks very much and hope you can help.
 
Solution
Someone Somewhere
You don't want shielded cable, including FTP. It's a huge amount harder to terminate, and unless done perfectly it can actually reduce performance. UTP all the way.

I would stick with Cat6 or Cat6a - likely whichever you can get cheaper.

Unless you've got access to the gear to properly compliance test it ($$$$$, not one of those cheap tools with 8 LEDs), I expect that the termination will have more of an impact on performance than the type of cable.

You can technically run 10G up to 55m on Cat6, 100m on Cat6a. It doesn't look like 25G or 40G is being considered for Cat6a - Cat8 is what I can find right now. Not finalised yet.
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Someone Somewhere

Someone Somewhere

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Sep 23, 2012
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You don't want shielded cable, including FTP. It's a huge amount harder to terminate, and unless done perfectly it can actually reduce performance. UTP all the way.

I would stick with Cat6 or Cat6a - likely whichever you can get cheaper.

Unless you've got access to the gear to properly compliance test it ($$$$$, not one of those cheap tools with 8 LEDs), I expect that the termination will have more of an impact on performance than the type of cable.

You can technically run 10G up to 55m on Cat6, 100m on Cat6a. It doesn't look like 25G or 40G is being considered for Cat6a - Cat8 is what I can find right now. Not finalised yet.
 
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bill001g

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Aug 9, 2012
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Many of the HDMI over cat6 cables require 2 parallel cables. This is a very different requirement than running ethernet data over the same type of cable.

It is so hard to predict the future in computer stuff. By the time 10g ports get common on pc and the default disk subsystems are designed to actually be able to use speeds like that who knows what will be available. Currently in a home environment there is very little need for speeds that are faster than 1g.

The best future proof is conduit you can easily pull out and replace just the cable. Remember when they claimed you should run SVHS cables to future proof your video and we now only use HDMI. Pretty much the same on monitor cables that are now moving to display port instead of HDMI.
 
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little_me

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May 9, 2015
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Also as far as HDMI over ethernet converters are concerned, 90% of time you HAVE to have shielded ethernet cable for it to work for any longer distances than few meters. As Someone somewhere said though, terminating them is harder and without actual real tester that costs a lot, checking that it actually works is next to impossible. 99.9% of errors are made/come from the termination.
There are of course cheap solutions and more expensive solutions as far as converters go, usually more expensive ones can handle non-shielded cabling but not always.

As bill001g said, many converters need 2 parallel cat cables to run the hdmi signal, this is simply because they just use cat cabling 2x(4x2)=16 to transmit hdmi signal as is through it and often handle only strengthening the signal at the start/end points. These solutions absolutely need shielded cable to work, in my experience.

Best future proofing is to use conduits for ALL wiring, that way you can always install new latest trend cabling in without ripping walls/floors/ceilings apart.
 
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