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International standardISO/IEC 11801Information technology — Generic cabling for customer premises specifies general-purposetelecommunication cabling systems (structured cabling) that are suitable for a wide range of applications (analog and ISDN telephony, variousdata communication standards, buildingcontrol systems,factory automation). It is published byISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 25/WG 3 of theInternational Organization for Standardization (ISO) and theInternational Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). It covers both balanced copper cabling and optical fibre cabling.
The standard was designed for use within commercial premises that may consist of either a single building or of multiple buildings on a campus. It was optimized for premises that span up to 3 km, up to 1 km2 office space, with between 50 and 50,000 persons, but can also be applied for installations outside this range.
A major revision was released in November 2017, unifying requirements for commercial, home and industrial networks.
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| Twisted pair |
|---|
The standard defines several link/channel classes and cabling categories oftwisted-pair copper interconnects, which differ in the maximum frequency for which a certain channel performance is required:
The standard link impedance is 100 Ω. (The older 1995 version of the standard also permitted 120 Ω and 150 Ω in Classes A−C, but this was removed from the 2002 edition.)
The standard defines several classes ofoptical fiber interconnect:
*Grandfathered
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OM5 fiber is designed for wideband applications usingSWDM multiplexing of 4–16 carriers (40G=4λ×10G, 100G=4λ×25G, 400G=4×4λ×25G) in the 850–953 nm range.
Class F channel andCategory 7 cable arebackward compatible with Class D/Category 5e and Class E/Category 6. Class F features even stricter specifications forcrosstalk and system noise than Class E. To achieve this,shielding was added for individual wire pairs and the cable as a whole. Unshielded cables rely on the quality of the twists to protect from EMI. This involves a tight twist and carefully controlled design. Cables with individual shielding per pair such as Category 7 rely mostly on the shield and therefore have pairs with longer twists.[1]
The Category 7 cable standard was ratified in 2002, and primarily introduced to support10 gigabit Ethernet over 100 m ofcopper cabling.[2] Like the earlier standards, it contains four twisted copper wire pairs rated for transmission frequencies of up to 600 MHz.[3]
However, in 2006, Category 6A was ratified for Ethernet to allow 10 Gbit/s while still using the conventional8P8C connector. Care is required to avoid signal degradation by mixing cable and connectors not designed for that use, however similar. Most manufacturers of active equipment and network cards have chosen to support the 8P8C for their 10 gigabit Ethernet products on copper and notGG45,ARJ45, orTERA connectors as Class F would have originally called for.[4] Therefore, the Category 6 specification was revised to Category 6A to permit this use; products therefore require a Class EA channel (ie, Cat 6A).[citation needed]
As of 2019,[update] some equipment has been introduced which has connectors supporting the Class F (Category 7) channel.[citation needed]
Note, however, that Category 7 is not recognized by theTIA/EIA.[citation needed]
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Class FA (Class F Augmented) channels andCategory 7A cables, introduced by ISO 11801 Edition 2 Amendment 2 (2010), are defined at frequencies up to 1000 MHz.[citation needed]
The intent of the Class FA was to possibly support the future 40 gigabit Ethernet:40GBASE-T. Simulation results have shown that40 gigabit Ethernet may be possible at 50 meters and 100 gigabit Ethernet at 15 meters.[citation needed] In 2007, researchers atPennsylvania State University predicted that either 32 nm or 22 nm circuits would allow for 100 gigabit Ethernet at 100 meters.[5][6]
However, in 2016, theIEEE 802.3bq working group ratified the amendment 3 which defines 25GBASE-T and 40GBASE-T on Category 8 cabling specified to 2000 MHz. The Class FA therefore does not support 40G Ethernet.
As of 2025,[update][needs update] there is no equipment that has connectors supporting the Class FA (Category 7A) channel.
Category 7A is not recognized in TIA/EIA.
 | This section needs to beupdated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(June 2019) |
Category 8 was ratified by the TR43 working group under ANSI/TIA 568-C.2-1. It is defined up to 2000 MHz and only for distances up to 30 m or 36 m, depending on the patch cords used.
ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 25/WG 3 developed the equivalent standard ISO/IEC 11801-1:2017/COR 1:2018, with two options:[7][8][9]
Annex E,Acronyms for balanced cables, provides a system to specify the exact construction for both unshielded and shielded balanced twisted pair cables. It uses three letters—U for unshielded, S for braided shielding, and F for foil shielding—to form a two-part abbreviation in the form of xx/xTP, where the first part specifies the type of overall cable shielding, and the second part specifies shielding for individual cable elements.
Common cable types include U/UTP (unshielded cable); U/FTP (individual pair shielding without the overall screen); F/UTP, S/UTP, or SF/UTP (overall screen without individual shielding); and F/FTP, S/FTP, or SF/FTP (overall screen with individual foil shielding).
In November 2017, a new edition was released byISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 25 "Interconnection of information technology equipment" subcommittee. It is a major revision of the standard which has unified several prior standards for commercial, home, and industrial networks, as well as data centers, and defines requirements for generic cabling and distributed building networks.
The new series of standards replaces the former 11801 standard and includes six parts:[7][10][11]
| ISO/IEC Standard | Title | Replaces | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| ISO/IEC 11801-1 | Part 1: General requirements | ISO/IEC 11801 | Generic cabling requirements for twisted-pair and optical fiber cables |
| ISO/IEC 11801-2 | Part 2: Office premises | ISO/IEC 11801 | Cabling for commercial (enterprise) buildings |
| ISO/IEC 11801-3 | Part 3: Industrial premises | ISO/IEC 24702 | Cabling for industrial buildings, with applications including automation,process control, and monitoring |
| ISO/IEC 11801-4 | Part 4: Single-tenant homes | ISO/IEC 15018 | Cabling for residential buildings, including 1200 MHz links forCATV/SATV applications |
| ISO/IEC 11801-5 | Part 5: Data centers | ISO/IEC 24764 | Cabling for high-performance networks used by data centers |
| ISO/IEC 11801-6 | Part 6: Distributed building services | — | Cabling for distributed wireless networks forbuilding automation andIOT devices |
