Cat 6 or Cat6a in new construction home?

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Should I run cat6a in my new house or would cat6 suffice? I don’t have any runs over 100’ from the switch so I’m thinking I can get 10gig speeds with cat6.

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If the cost difference is only a few bucks go with 6A.

Which I bet its only like $30-40 per thousand feet.

CAT6. In a residential application there is zero reason to purchase CAT6A instead.

I don’t think you need to worry about bend radius for your home unless you have an unusual request/volume of cable or unusual walls.
The biggest thing will be how you enter the “data room” and how you account for the volume of cable coming through the room.
A 3” hole buys you 41 (and this is for plenum, so if anything, this should be conservative because I think plenum will all by a wee bit thicker and less pliable). 2” gives you 18. Design the room right for a 4” drop through conduit, and you can incrementally add on after the fact basically infinitely.





ETA: remark about bend radius. It’s still probably as/more flexible than RG6/coax.

Whatever you choose, make sure they run conduit too so you can easily upgrade in the future or add extra runs if need be.

Found you a quick difference.


1. Cat6A cable is made and terminated to tighter tolerances than Cat6. This means the copper conductors are twisted tighter. This requires higher specification patch panels, wall jacks, and RJ45 connectors.
2. Cat6A speed is at least 500 MHz. This allows 10 Gbp/s (Gigabits per second) up to 328 feet (100 meters). Cat6 max speed is 250 MHz. Therefore, it only supports 10 Gbp/s to 165 feet (55 meters) under ideal conditions—less in heavy cross talk environments.
3. Cat6A cable often uses thicker copper conductors and jackets. This make installation more difficult and drives up the price.

Much more detailed/tedious in order to get the benefits out of it over cat6, but in the short distances involved in a residential environment, its not worth it.
A typical do-it-yourselfer wouldn't get any actual improvements in bandwith with 6A.

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Whatever you choose, make sure they run conduit too so you can easily upgrade in the future or add extra runs if need be.

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You do not need to run conduit in the walls to ensure upgrading or additions. This is a very unnecessary expense.

Oh, and CAT 6 will be fine for a residential application. Cat 6 allows 10G for up to 180' and Cat 6a allows it for up to 330'. Unless your runs are super long, you don't need 6a.

ETA: Sorry, I now see that td1 posted this info already.

The language is typically "up to", so it's very much a YMMV situation. There are a lot of factors that determine whether a given cable will work at a given speed over a given length. Quality of the cable and terminations, environmental factors like interference and heat, whether the devices at both ends of the cable "like" the signals they're seeing.

Also you have to account for 10' of vertical at each end of the run in addition to the horizontal distance which is rarely a straight line. Even a small/average size house might have a run 10+30+50+10 = 100 feet or more, and my guess is there is a lot of cat6 out there that won't do 10G over that distance. According to Fluke's testing, something like 80% of cat6 cable doesn't meet spec. And according to these guys a lot of cat6 doesn't even meet cat5e spec.

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