Massachussets based Quabbin Wire & Cable has created a cable design that promises to make top of rack and patching jobs a lot easier and less error prone. The elimination of cabling confusion and wrongly pulled connections could avert many expensive downtime disasters, according to the inventors. 

The new “Mini-6a” cable is 23 percent smaller than existing Category  6a offerings, has a 38 percent smaller cross sectional area, is 33 percent lighter than standard UTP patch cable. It achieves this by elminating the “spline” which normally separates cable pairs  in high specification Cat 6 cables. this creates a performance trad-off which Quabbin says is well worthwhile.

Ex-splining the difference…

Splines or “star fillers” are lengths of plastic with a star cross-seciton used in high specification cables. They greatly increase the bulk of the cable and make it  harder to bend, but they drastcially reduce the “cross-talk” (interference between cable pairs) and enable high specification cables such as the most recent specitication, Category 6a (defined in 2009) to carry signals up to 100m in noisy environments such as data centers.

Quabbin points out that a lot of cables such as patch don’t have to carry signals nearly so far. Many only reach a few metres. The company therefore sees a market for a light and flexible cable which performs up to the 6a spec, over distances (it claims) of up to 56 metres.

The small unshielded twisted pair (UTP) DataMax Mini-6a is ideal for tight spaces and temperature sensitive environments, says Quabbin, and the lightweight cable allows for greater airflow. Bulkier cables tend to trap air around routers, switches and servers, leading to overheating, performance loss and even downtime caused by hot devices.

Lack of airflow can make air conditioning systems work harder, sending up power bills and power usage effectives (PUE) ratings. The smaller gauge cables – which don’t block air flow – avert this. They also help data centers to squeeze out a better return on their space, since less rom is needed for cabinet, claimed the manufacturer.

“They’re more manageable and flexible because of the spline free design,” said a spokesman, “for some the return will be measured in added available rack space created by using the slimmer cable or it may be in the maximization of airflow created by making the switch from a standard patch cable to the DataMax mini.”

The DataMax Mini 6a is not intended to replace all standard Cat 6a F/UTP patch cords but will initially make inroads in data centers where size, air space and flexibility are of the utmost importance, according to the vendor.