Jason faces the end of Cat 7.
Jason faces the end of Cat 7.
I strongly dislike layer 1. It’s frustrating. As a network expert, I’m good at designing and tweaking networks, but wiring? That’s a different story. My workspace extends into the living room on the first floor, and a few years ago an electrician installed a Cat6 cable from the living room down to the basement. They ran it through the walls for convenience, which let me manage devices in the living room and trunk all traffic through the basement switch. The Cat5 from my office to the living room was tucked behind drywall—it looked subpar. I’ve since upgraded to modern Cisco switches in both floors, including a new 10G GigE model with SFP+ ports. The old Cat5 couldn’t handle the speeds, so I tried pushing two Cat5 cables into a Cat6 jack, but they failed to negotiate 10G. That pushed me to rewire the second-story switch directly to the basement one using Cat7. I planned to hide two Cat7 cables behind the walls and use surface-mount boxes at each end for a 2x10GbE link. Unfortunately, the boxes I bought didn’t support shielded cables properly, so the connection broke. I ended up using LC-to-LC patch cables and some MM 10G SFP+ modules, but the setup still didn’t work as intended. The real issue? The wrong box for the job.
I started learning about 10Gbit networking by using SFP+ 850nm transceivers and LC-to-LC UPC OM4 multimode fiber patch cables. My only 10GbE setup so far is a 2x10Gbe connection from my main server to the switch, which is due to the motherboard having an Intel X540-T2 built-in chip.
Sure thing. Now that the copper is all set, I’m confident in handling it and have the necessary cables ready. The main hurdle will be enlarging the hole in my office floor for the LC connector. My current drill bit isn’t sufficient, so I’ll need spade bits. After widening the hole, getting the fibers to the basement should take about 10 to 15 minutes.
The LC connectors are quite compact. Picture having to insert an SC connector—you’d likely require a hole saw. Wouldn’t Cat6a have handled it perfectly, so you wouldn’t have needed to upgrade to Cat7.
Technically Cat6 can support 10Gbit up to 50 meters at most. Cat6a offers 10Gbit over 100 meters. The cable is designed for 10Gbit performance, but you're questioning the rating if you weren't sure about the requirements. I'm using Cat6a STP cables on my server without issues, though I'd rather use fiber. It's lighter, more flexible, thinner, less affected by EMI, can travel farther, and SFP+ NICs perform better with fiber. I also had to disassemble one myself when fitting it through a pre-existing cable path.
They seem to shift a bit when referenced, but you can usually manage by adjusting slightly and twisting. Retrieving it is a bit more challenging and requires some bending of the connector casing (shown). It’s not too difficult as long as you don’t use a hammer. SC is simpler because you push each part separately; the housing comes off and you just reattach it.
I completed installing the MM cables and finished the setup. It turned out the hole I made in my floor was just wide enough for the fully assembled LC connector. Once I connected everything to the incoming MM SFP+ optics on my switch, we had a working link. Going forward, it will be straightforward since QSFP+ LC MM optics are available for 100GbE.
I also discovered my mistake with the Cat 7 cable. I needed to properly ground the shielding, which was confusing at first. After applying some copper tape with conductive adhesive, the connection worked. The photo shows a single piece of Cat 7 inserted into both sides of the block, revealing the copper tape through the small opening. Essentially, the ports were looped together. I added IP addresses to ports 9 and 10 on the switch so they wouldn’t act as switches, preventing a loop. Then I connected both ports to the block using the Cat 6 cables shown. The main issue was leaving the two 75ft runs of Cat 7 in place without reattaching them with the tape. If I had kept those Cat 7 runs and used the copper tape for retermination, it might have worked. But honestly, fiber is the better option.