The deployment of Category 6A copper cabling system has been increasing rapidly as enterprises enable their physical infrastructure with 10 Gb/s capacity to support Smart Data Center server virtualization, I/O consolidation, switch-up links for parallel processing, and convergence of back-bone links applications. While the use of Category 6A cabling has been growing significantly in High Speed Data Transport (HDST) systems, a number of deployment challenges remain which impede broad acceptance of Category 6A cabling systems.

These challenges include larger, heavier cables that are difficult to manage, restrict proper air flow in pathway spaces, and add additional stress to the infrastructure due to their added weight. End-users also have questions regarding the overall robustness and reliability of Category 6A cabling systems: can these systems provide alien crosstalk performance beyond industry requirements, support both short and long links, be comingled with other copper category cables, and support Power over Ethernet (PoE) applications?