We have come to expect a new data cabling category, such as Cat6a or Cat7a, every few years but it seems this will no longer be the case. At a bi-annual meeting of ISO/IEC JTC1 SC25 standards committee, it was made clear that and increases in speed would be achieved by having new network standards across shorter lengths of existing categories of cable. This would met the requirements of data centres where equipment is closer together and longer distances are handled by fibre.

Cat7a, highly shielded against noise and crosstalk, and rated for transmission frequencies of up to 1000 MHz, will be the basis for future development of high-bandwidth for audiovisual and data services.