What the heck is Category 8 wiring?

[Raspewtin]

This is what they want to install in a new condo i am buying. What the heck is it? Is it backwards compatible to Cat5? I know of Cat5E, Cat5, and Cat3, but never heard of Cat8?

 

[Noriaki]

Never heard of it...maybe they meant 8wire CAT5?

 

[Hanpan]

It does exist. It is a really high end wiring. Not really needed in any kind of regualr situation. Agaik it is backwards compatible. I was talking to an adsl tech a while ago and he said some building are wired with it but it is overkill for what we do.

Not 100% sure about backwards compatibility though.

 

[Raspewtin]

hey yeah maybe. the builder doesn't know jack. however she was sure it was cat 8. i'll ask the electrician. what is 8 wire cat 5?

 

[smp]

Sounds good though. If it is backwards compatable, that's good, just means that it might be future proof.. which would be a selling point for them... "Buy our condo, electricians won't come into your place in ten years to rip up the floors."

 

[Noriaki]

8 wire is the proper cat5 standard.
But 10baseT and 100baseTX only actually use 4 of them, so sometimes you get people cheaping out and using only 4 of them to save money.

 

[randomlinh]

which is bad i heard. even tho no data is run over those extra 4 wires, it's used to keep from crosstalk or interference... or so i've been told.

 

[bozo1]

Cat 8 is a newer flavor that supposedly has less signal loss. It is not an approved standard and appears that it may not be since Cat 5e is approved for 1Gbs. From what I've read, everytime it is brought before the IEEE committee for approval, it is basically ignored. That being said, there is nothing wrong with it and many builders are using it to get a jump on things in case it becomes mainstream.

 

[Bozo Galora]

NEMA is just now finalizing Cat 6 and 7(F), and the cabling is having a hard time meeting standards (600MHZ for 7). Category 8 HAS been proposed (gigabit) but Ive never heard of actual install. Could you recheck - I would be interested.

The significant differentiator between category 6/class E and category 7/class F is the
cabling media. Category 6/class E is generally considered to represent the highest
bandwidth capable of being supported by unshielded twisted-pair (UTP) and screened
twisted-pair (ScTP) cables; to achieve even greater performance, category 7 cables
must utilize a more robust, fully shielded construction which virtually eliminates crosstalk
between all pairs up to 600 MHz (see Figure 2). A typical category 7 cable design
consists of four 23 AWG (0.55mm) twisted-pairs, each enveloped within a foil wrap. An
overall braided sheath typically surrounds the four foil-wrapped pairs. A drain wire may
be provided to facilitate grounding. Category 7 fully shielded cable types are sometimes
referred to as SSTP (?double shielded twisted-pair?) or PiMF (?pairs in metal foil?).

uno

dos

tres

 

[Raspewtin]

<< NEMA is just now finalizing Cat 6 and 7(F), and the cabling is having a hard time meeting standards (600MHZ for 7). category 8 HAS been proposed (gigabit) but Ive never heard of actual install. Could you recheck - I would be interested. >>




I will check tomorrow. i wonder if cat 8 is backwards compatible.