Shielded cabling and the benefits of U/FTP cable

Shielded cabling and the benefits of U/FTP cable

Since the early 1980’s, shielded cables have been a popular choice for data networking. Most notably, IBM standardized on an S/FTP cable for their Token Ring LAN systems. Shielded cables continue to be the dominant ICT infrastructure choice in many countries, particularly in Europe. In many other countries, the use of unshielded cables is dominant, particularly in the USA.

The choice of shielded versus unshielded cable has been the topic of many passionate debates over the years and ultimately the choice comes down to a number of factors including applications to be supported, environment and of course budget.

The main reason for using a shielded cable is to shield the transmission signal travelling within the cable from Electromagnetic Interference (EMI). It also acts to stop these transmission signals from leaving the cable and interfering with other electrical and electronic systems.

You can find out more about shielded cabling and U/FTP benefits in our technical paper below, which covers the following:

• Main types of cable construction
• CAT6A U/FTP performance
• CAT6A U/FTP termination and installation
• CAT6A U/FTP specifications