Cat 6 vs Cat 6A vs Cat 7: What to Pull for New Construction

The Short Answer: Cat 6A

For any new construction or major refurbishment in 2026, pull Cat 6A. Full stop. The price delta over Cat 6 is ~15–20%, and it future-proofs the building for 10GBASE-T to every outlet.

Why Not Cat 6?

Cat 6 supports 1 Gbps at 100m and 10 Gbps only up to 37m (with alien crosstalk issues). That's fine for today, but Wi-Fi 7 APs already want 2.5G/5G/10G uplinks and client NICs are moving there. Refreshing cabling is the most expensive thing in a building — do it once, do it right.

Why Not Cat 7/7A/8?

Cat 7 uses non-standard GG45/Tera connectors that most installers haven't stocked in a decade. Cat 8 is designed for 25/40G short runs (30m) in data center top-of-rack — it's the wrong tool for horizontal floor runs.

Cat 6A Specs to Demand

• Shielded (F/UTP or S/FTP) for dense deployments and AV-heavy floors
• LSZH jacket (low smoke zero halogen) for building code compliance
• 23 AWG solid copper — never copper-clad aluminum (CCA)
• Permanent link certified — every run individually tested to 500 MHz, report archived

Brands We Stock

Panduit, CommScope (SYSTIMAX), Belden, Legrand, D-Link Pro. For Indian projects we default to CommScope GigaSpeed XL 2091B (Cat 6A F/UTP LSZH) and Panduit TX6A-SD for connector-matched links.