Self Hosting – How much shield is too much shield?

So, with the new home, I decided to wire the whole place with new network cable (there was none originally) and I was not a huge fan of having a wire going from the back of the first floor to the front of that first floor, very “feet hookable” problem in fact. So I decided to look at what kind of options I had. So, since we have the basement fully opened and gutted, this is the best time to pass new wires without causing other kind of problems. I also even got the Cable internet wire moved outside so now it goes inside my mechanical room.way easier if I eventually want to move my server room to the actual mechanical room. But I digress, back on the network topic!

The first choice, economical and “good enough”, the ol’ CAT6 cables.
While it would have been a solid choice, I was not sure that this was the option I should go for to have a future-proof house. On the other hand it was pretty darned cheap!

The second alternative, much more sturdy and future-ready, CAT6A cables.
This one was very interesting. with the ability to go 10gbps on the cable, it is highly superior to the CAT6 (that’s technically capped at 1gbps but, I’ve read that people manage to get 2.5gbps on them kinda easy). I don’t want my network to be slow since this network bridge is supposed to link the back of the house (where my network stack is) with the front of the house (where the gaming pcs are) so a 10gbps cable would have been a real upgrade.

The third option, a non official IEEE-approved cable called CAT7.
Spoiler alert, this is what I ended up getting. This one had some rather cool features. Since i’m dealing with a basement with lots of power cables (some are really massive cables), I was enchanted by the specs of the CAT7. It is a all-shielded, shielded twisted pairs cable. That, with the price a tiny little bit under the CAT6a (don’t ask, I’m still not getting it), made me press the buy button.

The fourth possibility, going all the way Future-proof CAT8 cable.
While this one was screaming my name during my researches, I had to decline the call… The main issue is that my network equipment is probably not able to run at 10gbps, so I really don’t NEED a 40gbps cable for it. The other big issue was the price. Yeah, not made of money and I was running on a budget for the network. I had to make choices.

In the meantime, here’s a little picture of that shielded-sheilded cable. 😋

Another problem I faced was the fact that normal CAT6 or CAT5e cables are 24AWG size, That lovely CAT7 is 23AWG. Guess what happened when I tried to add terminations to that wire ? Exactly…. it was not fitting. I ended up having to get Keystones terminations that I could use a punch on and so far that’s working great. Just a bit annoying that I bought 50 connectors and not a single one fits… and before you ask; no, the proper sized connectors are outrageously expensive (at least 6 or 7 times the price of the 24AWG connectors). So for the meantime, I’ll keep that wire only for keystones and patch panel that I can use the punch tool on. 😂

hope you enjoyed!