Standards and Categories of Cat.8 network cable

In the field of network communication, when talking about Ethernet cables, we often refer to the statements of U/UTP Cat.5e network cables, Cat.6 network cables and Cat.7 network cables. However, in recent years, Cat.8 network cables have also been mentioned more. What are the differences between Cat.8 network cables and previous cables? Cat.8 network cables are the latest generation of double shielded (SFTP) network jumper wire. Its two signal pairs can support the bandwidth of 2000MHz, and the transmission rate is up to 40Gb/s, but its maximum transmission distance is only 30m, so it is generally used for the connection of servers, switches, distribution racks and other equipment in short distance data centers. At present, there are five types of common network cables on the market, namely, Cat.5 network cables, Cat.6 network cables, U/UTP Cat.6 network cables, Cat.7 network cables and S/FTP Cat.7 network cables. Cat.8 network cables, like Cat.7 & S/FTP 7 network cables, are shielded twisted pairs and can be used in data centers, high-speed and bandwidth intensive places. Although the transmission distance of Cat.8 network cables is not as far as that of Cat.7 & S/FTP 7 network cables, its speed and frequency are far higher than that of Cat.7 & S/FTP 7 network cables. Cat.8 network cable differs greatly from U/UTP Cat.5 network cable and Cat.6 & U/UTP 6 network cable, mainly in terms of speed, frequency, transmission distance and application.

Cat.8 Network Cable Science Popularization

The relevant standards of Cat.8 network cables were officially issued by the (TIA) TR-43 Committee of the Telecommunications Industry Association in 2016, as follows:

1. Comply with IEEE 802.3bq 25G/40GBASE-T standard, specify the minimum transmission rate of Cat.8 class 8 network cables, and support 25 Gbps and 40 Gbps network cabling.

2. Comply with ANSI/TIA-568-C 2-1 standard, which specifies the channels and permanent links of Cat.8 network cables, and includes the limits of resistance imbalance, TCL and ELTCTL.

3. Comply with ANSI/TIA-1152-A standard, and specify the measurement and accuracy requirements of Cat.8 network cable field tester.

4. Comply with ISO/IEC-11801 standard, and specify the channel and permanent link of Category I/II Cat.8 VIII network cable.

Application Scenarios and Advantages of Cat.8 Network Cable

Since Cat.8 network cable/Category I and Category II channels are limited to 30m in length, it is mainly used in the data center and does not require traditional 100m full cabling. Backbone cabling and access point cabling may also become applications in conventional enterprise buildings. The backbone of many buildings is less than 30 meters, and many indoor access points do not need long cables. It can be predicted that the speed of access points will exceed 10Gbit/s in the future, so better cabling than Cat.6A is required. For families, some applications may also be catalysts for high-speed structured cabling. The typical length of cabling in the home is roughly the same as the range of the data center. Therefore, Cat.8 network cable may also become a future oriented cabling option for the home. Especially in the aspect of sustainability, home wiring is long-term or permanent. Embedded Cat.8 cable is a very good choice. At present, the most commonly used application is 40GBase-T. IEEE has a relatively new move, 25GBase-T Ethernet speed. It turns out that 25GBase-T will actually find more supporters than 40GBase-T. On the one hand, the cost is because the production cost of 25GBase-T transceiver is lower than that of 40Gbase-T. On the other hand, because of speed aggregation, in the data center, the next higher speed is 100Gbit/s Ethernet, usually on optical cabling. Aggregating 4 x 25Gbit/s into a 100Gbit/s line is easier than aggregating 40Gbit/s lines into 100Gbit/s lines.

Cat.8 network cables, like Cat.7 & U/UTP 7 network cables, are shielded twisted pairs and can be used in data centers, high-speed and bandwidth intensive places. Although the transmission distance of Cat.8 network cables is not as far as that of Cat.7 & U/UTP 7 network cables, its speed and frequency are far higher than that of Cat.7 & U/UTP 7 network cables. Cat.8 network cable is quite different from Cat.5 network cable and Cat.6 network cable, mainly in terms of speed, frequency, transmission distance and application.