What’s new in CAT6 & CAT6a Plenums?

CAT6 Plenum is the sixth generation of networking cables with capabilities far beyond the time of its introduction in 2002. The specifications of this category were truly futuristics with its instinctive approach towards the next generation.

It won’t be wrong if we say that this cable saw the future and adapted it because 10 gigabytes of data transfer speed over the course of 100 meters and at the time when even internet was finding its way towards the surface was truly phenomenal.

Before we truly delve inside these two cables, it's better to understand the jacket type as well. In this scenario, Plenum is the jacket type of these two cables. The word plenum comes from the plenum space concept which is basically spaces that are meant for heat and cold air to pass through them, these spaces mostly include the air vents.

Now, the cables when putting in such spaces can be harmful to the environment for the very reason that they are less protective of the heat and hence can burn and produce visible smoke and toxic gasses. With such cases to be of an issue, there came plenum cables. These cables with their fire strict properties protect the environment.

Category 6’s Standard Plenum is one of the top 3 networking cables in the world right now and the very reason behind it is that they are very effective and are useful for a long term cycle. The specifications for this cable is a speed of 10 gigabytes that can travel the course of 100 meters giving the performance of up to 550 MHz.

CAT6a Plenum is the augmented type of Category 6. What’s different with its advance competitor per se, is the performance frequency. Although the speed of both these cables, standard and ‘augmented’, are similar, the difference in frequency is the real deal in the considerations of the consumers. This category’s augmented plenum gives a high bargain with a frequency of up to 850 MHz.

The real question is what’s new and if we compare these specifications to the predecessors we can easily determine that the predecessor lacked in speed where we are getting a speed of 10 gigs, the predecessor gave only 1 gig and also in the frequency department with twice to thrice as much frequency than the predecessor.

Hence, this is the very reason why these two networking cables are two of the top three networking cables in the market today and why they are really known to be the futuristic ethernet networking cables.