If you are fitting out or refurbishing an office in Nottingham, the cabling choice usually comes down to Cat6 or Cat6a. Both will run a modern network, but they differ in speed over distance, physical size and cost. The right answer depends on your building and how long you plan to stay in it.
Both cables carry 1 Gigabit Ethernet over the full 100 metre channel, which is 90 metres of fixed cable plus patch leads at each end. The gap opens up at 10 Gigabit. Cat6 is rated to 250 MHz and supports 10 Gigabit only up to about 55 metres, and as little as 37 metres where many cables are tightly bundled together. Cat6a is rated to 500 MHz and carries 10 Gigabit over the full 100 metres.
Cat6a is also better at rejecting interference from neighbouring cables and copes better with the heat generated by Power over Ethernet. That matters if you are powering Wi-Fi access points, CCTV cameras or door entry from the switch.
For a small office of five to twenty desks where people mostly use email, cloud software and video calls, Cat6 is rarely the bottleneck. Your internet connection and switches are far more likely to limit you than the cable in the wall. A typical desktop PC or VoIP phone uses a fraction of 1 Gigabit.
Cat6 also makes sense on a short lease. If you are taking a serviced floor near the station or a unit on a three year term in Beeston or Long Eaton, you may never see a return on the extra spend. Shorter cable runs in a compact office also mean Cat6 can often carry 10 Gigabit anyway.
Cat6a earns its keep when you own the building or hold a lease of ten years or more, because cabling should outlast two or three generations of network hardware. It is also the sensible choice for the links that carry the most traffic, even if the desks stay on Cat6.
The thicker cable is where Cat6a catches people out. A bundle of 24 Cat6a cables takes up noticeably more room than Cat6, so trunking, floor boxes and cabinets fill faster. In converted Lace Market warehouses and older city centre buildings, routes are often tight, walls are thick brick and listed status can restrict new containment. We sometimes find Cat6a simply will not fit existing dado trunking without replacing it.
Modern offices with raised floors and suspended ceilings, such as those on the science park or newer business parks, usually take Cat6a without difficulty. A site survey settles this quickly, and it is worth doing before you commit to either option.
As a rough guide, Cat6a adds around 20 to 40 percent to the cabling element of a job. The cable, sockets and patch panels cost more, and it takes longer to install and terminate. For a straightforward office in the Nottingham area, expect something in the region of £60 to £110 per point for Cat6 and £80 to £150 for Cat6a, depending on run lengths, access, containment and how many points are installed in one visit.
A mixed approach often gives the best value: Cat6a to access points and between comms cabinets, with Cat6 to the desks. Whichever you choose, ask for each point to be tested and for the results to be handed over, as a poorly installed Cat6a link can perform worse than good Cat6.
Yes. They use the same connectors and work together, so it is common to run Cat6a to Wi-Fi access points and between cabinets while using Cat6 for desk points. Each link simply performs to the standard of its lowest rated component.
Not on its own. Your speed is set by your broadband or leased line and your switches, so Cat6a only helps where those are already capable of more than 1 Gigabit or where you move large files internally.
A 20 to 30 point office typically takes one to three days, depending on access, containment and whether the work has to be done out of hours. Older buildings with awkward routes tend to sit at the longer end.
Tell us about your project, send any drawings or schedules, and we'll come back the same day with a clear, itemised quote.
