I'm still a big copper fan, both because it's cheap (cable and rj45 hardware like switches), and the PoE. Probably because I'm a lazy homeowner and running power to new areas of the house is a time cost (and financial cost if I get the work inspected as you should). I'm actually thinking of using outdoor rated cat6 to run two or three 60W PoE lines to my shed so I can run a wireless AP, camera, and I'm thinking some LED lighting with PoE to DC power adapters. Fiber is cool and I look forward to playing with it more, but for home use it's copper all the way for me.
Hello! Totally agree. For some installations (and especially shorter run situations like homes) where high speed (anything exceeding 10Gbps for example) is not required or foreseen, copper is still king. It is all about picking the right cable and technology for the job! Copper won't be eliminated completely anytime soon, if ever.
WOW.. What a great, concise 30000Ft view of cabling in 2024. Thank you for the effort you made into putting this together... You managed to shed some light for me on fiber that I was unaware of. I guess SMF is the way to go...
I just got done running a 8 strand bundle of single mode from my basement to attic so I can connect two halves of my network (upstairs and downstairs). My bigger deciding factor was being able to later switch to BiDi transceivers.
Hello! It sounds like you put a great deal of thought into your fiber install. Very nicely done! BiDi transceivers are a huge time saver, even if a bit more expensive. Being able to use a single fiber to send AND receive is a major boon that I take advantage of myself.
I wired up my home network with Cat 8: complete overkill from the perspective of data coming into the house, but notable QOL improvement when it comes to zero bottle neck with lots of internal network traffic (I.E. one person is streaming a movie from a home media server at the same time someone else is watching netflix). For such a miniscule cable cost & how it is universally compatible with all conventional Ethernet hardware, there is no reason not to use it.
the one thing you should have touched on is the SFP+ modules and how to know which ones work well in switches of different brands like a peplink sd switch cisco switch and unifi switches or ubiqicty as well can you touch on this people don't give good advice on the sfp+ modules I don't like changing the auto config to manual just for sfp+ to work right
Hello, and that's great feedback. Our general advice is this: Use the transceiver module that is produced by the same brand of switch. Match them. Avoid mixing brands, as there can sometimes be issues (usually involving anything Cisco...).
Out of curiosity, what makes you believe multimode is on its way out? Also, are there still any concerns with burning up optics with very short single mode runs?
Yeah multimodal is not on the way out. Compare the prices of high speed optics in multi mode and single mode and you can save thousands by using multi mode. For LR optics aka your standard 10km distance ones then the shortest distance is 2m as per the standard. They adjust power levels to avoid burning out the photo diodes,
Fiber is not so easy to handle. Connecting copper cable to jacks is much easier. For connecting fiber cable, you have to splice it. Splicing is expensive. The devices are expensive and have to be recalibrated every month, what is expensive, too. Fiber is good for connecting different buildings of a company, schools, or university. Additional to high data rates, who can transmit is that all buildings are galvanic separated.
@@thorstenjaspert9394 SO much false information its not even funny. You can Terminate a fiber cable in less then 15 seconds with Mechanical ends. All you need is a cleaver. Look at Cleerline. Mechanical connections have come so far. Also a fusion splicer doesn't have to be recalibrated every month, only needs to be done if you are switching fiper types.
It would be interesting to the differences of Cat 7 and Cat8 shortly fresh dismantling. Does the shielding is more dense of Cat7 than Cat8. I never had a Cat8 cable in my hands. Cat 7 became the most installed network cable in Europe. Cat 7 is overkill, specified for 10 Gbit. Cat8 can transmit up to 40 Gbit. Cat8 is nod needed.
Hello! We are not familiar with that switch brand, but the use of copper SFP+ modules is definitely not new. Instead of having an actual 10 Gbps copper RJ45 port a switch will instead have SFP+ 10 Gbps slots that can accept fiber or copper compatible transceivers. It adds to the flexibility of any installation! Just be sure the copper cable you select is capable of handling 25G or 40G. Cat8 is a good candidate choice for this application, but you will be limited to 30M as you indicated. Hope this helps!
To be absolutely pendantic, there is no such thing as Category 7 cable!!! The explanation is wild actually, and boilsdown to one standards body attempting takeover the standard of another standards body. It was a real coup d'état in many ways involving bad actors, bad faith, arguably immoral or even unethical activities. The bad guys are ISO, the good guys are ANSI & TIA. The latter have always specified Category network cable, and is an American standard body, where the former is primarily a European group. What happened was a big European corporation, I believe it was Siemens, who was designing nextgen datacenter gear got super frisky, and frustrated with the slow pace of ANSI/TIA, and so they being a European corp approached ISO to establish CAT7 before the Americans, and thats what happened. In response TIA immediately reserved CAT8, CAT9, etc... to avoid any further adversarial standards body leapfrogging the specification numbers. Another thing that happened was all of TIA's progress towards their own CAT7 , the legitimate one that was still in rfc stages when ISO pulled this coup, was turned into CAT6a, and all future specs had an "a" for addendum sub spec. In general none of the important network hardware vendors recognized the ISO Cat7, but Siemens did sell some fancy products using that spec, mostly in European markets. The rest of the world continues to only recognize the on truely legitimate Category network spec published by TIA. There were several good thing that came out of this drama, the TIA has a much improved workflow to add new innovative tech into the RFC specs, to avoid folks going rouge. Anyhoo... There is no point discussing Cat7 cable, because it technically doesn't exist.
It's all irrelevant anyway as the IEEE defines all the ethernet standards and no 802.3 standard requires anything above Cat6a. That is apart for a couple of standards for 40Gbps and 25Gbps for which there is no equipment on the market can only do 30m and is point to point requiring Cat8 cable. However if you are using Cat8 cable then you need to be using CG45 connectors on your cable and you simply can't buy those. If you dont then you will make things worse than using plane Cat6a.
@@jonathanbuzzard1376 I'm pretty sure Cat7 being a non-standard is relevant. The IEEE does signaling at layers 1~2 on the OSI model, which is dependant on the category cable in layer 1. So your correct, or at least partially. Those CG45 connectors are rare, but actually a nice improvement for crosstalk. I don't think I've seen one for 10~15 years. The worst list of modern networking is the lack of standard for SFP ports, it's like the wild West of (lacking interoperability). Copper is nice for short runs, but yes I would agree the higher MHz is going to force adoption of a new connection.
While theoretically cat 8 can run 40G base-t ethernet. I am pretty sure, and i have looked recently, that there is no equipment on the market that can run this, and there is also no published roadmap of any company to produce such equipment. Also note that single mode and multimode fibre have both been around for decades, the difference is in the expense on the optics for them, not really the type of fibre.
Hello Phil! In the video I made it clear the MMF (multimode) is becoming obsolete. Single mode fiber is the current most widely deployed optical technology for new installations, and is the future. SFP stands for small form-factor pluggable, while SFP+ stands for enhanced small form-factor pluggable. SFP/SFP+ modules are not necessarily directly correlated with fiber optic. SFP/SFP+ describes the form factor of modular transceivers and the associated switch speed (that being the +) that any one SFP/SFP+ module can achieve. SFP+ modules also come in RJ45, too, for copper communication. It is just another type of switch port that accepts a modular device that may or may not be utilizing fiber optical technology. The latest version of SFP modules is SFP+. I hope this helps!
Hello! Coaxial is slowly disappearing, except for ISP drops, which use a different type of signaling technology from packetized Ethernet. Modern switched Ethernet no longer uses coaxial, with some edge-case exceptions of MoCA when there is no alternative.
I'm still a big copper fan, both because it's cheap (cable and rj45 hardware like switches), and the PoE. Probably because I'm a lazy homeowner and running power to new areas of the house is a time cost (and financial cost if I get the work inspected as you should). I'm actually thinking of using outdoor rated cat6 to run two or three 60W PoE lines to my shed so I can run a wireless AP, camera, and I'm thinking some LED lighting with PoE to DC power adapters.
Fiber is cool and I look forward to playing with it more, but for home use it's copper all the way for me.
Hello! Totally agree. For some installations (and especially shorter run situations like homes) where high speed (anything exceeding 10Gbps for example) is not required or foreseen, copper is still king. It is all about picking the right cable and technology for the job! Copper won't be eliminated completely anytime soon, if ever.
WOW.. What a great, concise 30000Ft view of cabling in 2024. Thank you for the effort you made into putting this together... You managed to shed some light for me on fiber that I was unaware of. I guess SMF is the way to go...
I just got done running a 8 strand bundle of single mode from my basement to attic so I can connect two halves of my network (upstairs and downstairs). My bigger deciding factor was being able to later switch to BiDi transceivers.
Hello! It sounds like you put a great deal of thought into your fiber install. Very nicely done! BiDi transceivers are a huge time saver, even if a bit more expensive. Being able to use a single fiber to send AND receive is a major boon that I take advantage of myself.
I wired up my home network with Cat 8: complete overkill from the perspective of data coming into the house, but notable QOL improvement when it comes to zero bottle neck with lots of internal network traffic (I.E. one person is streaming a movie from a home media server at the same time someone else is watching netflix).
For such a miniscule cable cost & how it is universally compatible with all conventional Ethernet hardware, there is no reason not to use it.
the one thing you should have touched on is the SFP+ modules and how to know which ones work well in switches of different brands like a peplink sd switch cisco switch and unifi switches or ubiqicty as well can you touch on this people don't give good advice on the sfp+ modules I don't like changing the auto config to manual just for sfp+ to work right
Hello, and that's great feedback. Our general advice is this: Use the transceiver module that is produced by the same brand of switch. Match them. Avoid mixing brands, as there can sometimes be issues (usually involving anything Cisco...).
Out of curiosity, what makes you believe multimode is on its way out? Also, are there still any concerns with burning up optics with very short single mode runs?
Yeah multimodal is not on the way out. Compare the prices of high speed optics in multi mode and single mode and you can save thousands by using multi mode. For LR optics aka your standard 10km distance ones then the shortest distance is 2m as per the standard. They adjust power levels to avoid burning out the photo diodes,
FIber Fiber Fiber !! All the way !
Fiber is not so easy to handle. Connecting copper cable to jacks is much easier. For connecting fiber cable, you have to splice it. Splicing is expensive. The devices are expensive and have to be recalibrated every month, what is expensive, too. Fiber is good for connecting different buildings of a company, schools, or university. Additional to high data rates, who can transmit is that all buildings are galvanic separated.
@@thorstenjaspert9394 SO much false information its not even funny. You can Terminate a fiber cable in less then 15 seconds with Mechanical ends. All you need is a cleaver. Look at Cleerline. Mechanical connections have come so far. Also a fusion splicer doesn't have to be recalibrated every month, only needs to be done if you are switching fiper types.
It would be interesting to the differences of Cat 7 and Cat8 shortly fresh dismantling. Does the shielding is more dense of Cat7 than Cat8. I never had a Cat8 cable in my hands. Cat 7 became the most installed network cable in Europe. Cat 7 is overkill, specified for 10 Gbit. Cat8 can transmit up to 40 Gbit. Cat8 is nod needed.
What about peplink switches they don’t make SFP + modules it’s 30m for sp+ to Ethernet Rj45
Hello! We are not familiar with that switch brand, but the use of copper SFP+ modules is definitely not new. Instead of having an actual 10 Gbps copper RJ45 port a switch will instead have SFP+ 10 Gbps slots that can accept fiber or copper compatible transceivers. It adds to the flexibility of any installation! Just be sure the copper cable you select is capable of handling 25G or 40G. Cat8 is a good candidate choice for this application, but you will be limited to 30M as you indicated. Hope this helps!
To be absolutely pendantic, there is no such thing as Category 7 cable!!! The explanation is wild actually, and boilsdown to one standards body attempting takeover the standard of another standards body. It was a real coup d'état in many ways involving bad actors, bad faith, arguably immoral or even unethical activities. The bad guys are ISO, the good guys are ANSI & TIA. The latter have always specified Category network cable, and is an American standard body, where the former is primarily a European group. What happened was a big European corporation, I believe it was Siemens, who was designing nextgen datacenter gear got super frisky, and frustrated with the slow pace of ANSI/TIA, and so they being a European corp approached ISO to establish CAT7 before the Americans, and thats what happened. In response TIA immediately reserved CAT8, CAT9, etc... to avoid any further adversarial standards body leapfrogging the specification numbers. Another thing that happened was all of TIA's progress towards their own CAT7 , the legitimate one that was still in rfc stages when ISO pulled this coup, was turned into CAT6a, and all future specs had an "a" for addendum sub spec. In general none of the important network hardware vendors recognized the ISO Cat7, but Siemens did sell some fancy products using that spec, mostly in European markets. The rest of the world continues to only recognize the on truely legitimate Category network spec published by TIA. There were several good thing that came out of this drama, the TIA has a much improved workflow to add new innovative tech into the RFC specs, to avoid folks going rouge. Anyhoo... There is no point discussing Cat7 cable, because it technically doesn't exist.
It's all irrelevant anyway as the IEEE defines all the ethernet standards and no 802.3 standard requires anything above Cat6a. That is apart for a couple of standards for 40Gbps and 25Gbps for which there is no equipment on the market can only do 30m and is point to point requiring Cat8 cable. However if you are using Cat8 cable then you need to be using CG45 connectors on your cable and you simply can't buy those. If you dont then you will make things worse than using plane Cat6a.
@@jonathanbuzzard1376 I'm pretty sure Cat7 being a non-standard is relevant. The IEEE does signaling at layers 1~2 on the OSI model, which is dependant on the category cable in layer 1. So your correct, or at least partially. Those CG45 connectors are rare, but actually a nice improvement for crosstalk. I don't think I've seen one for 10~15 years. The worst list of modern networking is the lack of standard for SFP ports, it's like the wild West of (lacking interoperability). Copper is nice for short runs, but yes I would agree the higher MHz is going to force adoption of a new connection.
While theoretically cat 8 can run 40G base-t ethernet. I am pretty sure, and i have looked recently, that there is no equipment on the market that can run this, and there is also no published roadmap of any company to produce such equipment.
Also note that single mode and multimode fibre have both been around for decades, the difference is in the expense on the optics for them, not really the type of fibre.
Single mode fiber is obsolete? What about sfp(+)?
Hello Phil! In the video I made it clear the MMF (multimode) is becoming obsolete. Single mode fiber is the current most widely deployed optical technology for new installations, and is the future. SFP stands for small form-factor pluggable, while SFP+ stands for enhanced small form-factor pluggable. SFP/SFP+ modules are not necessarily directly correlated with fiber optic. SFP/SFP+ describes the form factor of modular transceivers and the associated switch speed (that being the +) that any one SFP/SFP+ module can achieve. SFP+ modules also come in RJ45, too, for copper communication. It is just another type of switch port that accepts a modular device that may or may not be utilizing fiber optical technology. The latest version of SFP modules is SFP+. I hope this helps!
👍
Copper and glass hybrid “powered fiber cable”.
Coax?
Hello! Coaxial is slowly disappearing, except for ISP drops, which use a different type of signaling technology from packetized Ethernet. Modern switched Ethernet no longer uses coaxial, with some edge-case exceptions of MoCA when there is no alternative.