I know the CAT 7 has performance better than CAT 6 cables. I know the connectors and priferal equipment of using with CAT 7 should be specially designed to to impair the cat 7 performace. But what problem may I face if I want usiong the Data cable cat 7 instead cat 6 cable in a system designed for for using CAT 6.
Tanx a lot

From what I can see, CAT 7 is intended to be backwards compatible with CAT 6 and CAT 5. I would expect no impared performance from using CAT 7 cables.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_7_cable

But -
The Wikipedia article above says Siemon plans a non-standard RJ-45 connector, which wouldn't be backwards compatible. Their info says:
http://www.siemon.com/us/standards/13-17_category_7_class_f_11801_2002.asp

Interesting subject - if you are into that stuff! :)

mairan,

Cat7 allows for transmission rates of up to 10Gbps over copper. To accomplish those kinds of speeds the cable has shielding around each of the 4 pairs of wires plus an additional shielding around the whole 4 pairs and extra cladding. That means two things (at least): 1) the cable is heavier, thicker, and has less tolerance to bend, and 2) if the individual shields aren't grounded properly then the performance may end up worse than Cat5.

Equipment that is compliant with Cat7 standard has 4 additional contacts in addition to the current 8 contacts found in standard RJ45 connectors. Without grounding those additional 4 connectors you may end up experiencing worse performance in the cable due to induced current/voltages (perhaps from nearby electrical cables).

I manage a network of over 15,000 nodes (pc's, laptops, servers, printers, MRI machines, Infusion Pumps, EKG machines, etc) (hospital environment if you haven't guessed already) and most applications barely can make use of 100Mbps let alone 10Gbps. Even servers that claim they need 1Gbps connections empirical data shows that they really only use 1 to 2 Mbps on average and may burst to get close to 50Mbps (i.e. large MS Exchange environment of 10,000 users). The only applications that really do use 1Gbps and up are backups and even then it is only the backup servers that could get that close to those speeds since they can backup multiple clients. So at best there are very few applications that could really use those kinds of speeds.

Why do I say all of this? Because from a business view point I wouldn't use Cat7 everywhere and if I do decide to use it I would probably limit it to my Backup environment where both ends of the cable have Cat7 compliant machines or there is some provision for grounding near the connectors or the patch panels.

From a personal standpoint I would do it because I want to and not because I need to :)

Armed with this information I hope you could make an informative decision as to which direction you'd like to go.

Good luck

Casey

I have recently upgraded my home connection to cat. 7 from cat.6. I did so not because of total bandwidth performance, rather for resistance to EMI/RFI. I double checked with the manufacturer regarding complete backward compatibility and after installing my 50' cable, I noticed higher and more consistent download/upload speeds and a significant improvement in ping times (-20ms). I theorize that the insulation of the twisted pairs and entire cable becomes much more important over a length greater than 25', especially due to my observation that my modem outputs a rather low current signal. The cable I am using is rated for 600MHz and used gold plated connector pins.