Cat 8 Cables: Soon to be a Boon in An Average User’s Life

Cat 8 cables are still new and shiny. Pretty much no one uses them at home, yet. They are incredibly fast at 25Gbps to 40Gbps speeds. That kind of speed is only useful in a more industrial setting and after all, only such settings can afford the cost of it.

The question to ask is what are the possible uses of such an extravagant speed that this particular network cable gives?

We associate Internet speed with getting information faster, getting data faster.

Since Cat 8 cables are made of copper as opposed to glass in optical fiber cables, they are more durable. They are more cost-effective as well.

Cat 8 cables are useful in data centers that power all kinds of businesses and the internet, as we know it. While having your Twitter feed update faster than you can blink is great, but there is more to it.

Having information about an accident on your daily commute route, before you leave for work is good so that you can avoid it. However, even this is a small issue in the face of getting information about an avalanche, landslide or a flood. This is not solely dependent on network cables but they are a big part of it. Getting the right information at the right time is what counts, at the end of the day.

Let us focus on two daily uses of the internet that your average consumer does not realize as heavy usage:

IoT enabled smart home:

That is the concept behind having smart homes, smart workspaces and smart cars, that it helps us be more proactive in how we live our lives. Machine learning techniques power these smarts. Humans are creatures of habit, and the idea behind machine learning is that it learns your habits, and your preferences to always give you the right information at the right time. All of these smart things work because of the internet. The faster the internet, the better your smart devices and setup work!

If you are looking to build a house from the ground up or changing all the cabling, you can put in Cat 8 cables. While it is not entirely necessary for perhaps a decade, it may be useful someday. It is a good thing that it is backwards compatible, like its predecessors. So even if you don’t immediately connect your modem and devices via a Cat 8 cable but perhaps a Cat 6 or Cat 7, you should be fine for a few years.

When it comes to a smart home, it consists of smart thermostats, security cameras, smart doorbells, and smart lights, smart plugs, smart blinds, and smart garage doors. The high-speed internet that comes with this particular network cable keeps all of them connected to the internet, so you can be in touch with your home from wherever you are. If you forgot to turn off the lights, you can turn them off while getting to work. You can see who is at your front door by opening your security camera app even if you are sitting on a different continent. As simple as this sounds from the end user point of view, it takes continuous data transfers at very high speed.

Gaming:

Another industry where a faster network cable is good as well as necessary is entertainment. With cloud gaming gaining traction, both you and the data centers that host the game, need fast speed internet, to stream it in real time with virtually no lag. A Cat 6 cable helps you do just that, so all your gaming experience is fun. This is not limited to cloud gaming. You can use this cable for your gaming consoles as well, as most of them have an ethernet port. Digital gaming or video gaming is the kind of activity where you will only be able to really enjoy the experience if it is fully immersive.

Gaming is no longer limited to console gaming or even cloud gaming, there is virtual reality gaming as well as augmented reality (multiplayer augmented reality gaming also exists) gaming. Both of these won’t function with a weak or slow internet connection.

Gaming is no longer just about gaming for yourself. There is a whole gaming community, many of who stream their adventures online. People play games online while talking about the game with anyone who wants to join in the conversation. This means that while you are streaming a game online, you are also live streaming video or audio of you playing that game. This requires a frictionless internet experience.

All of this is to say that as humans we are only going to need the internet to be faster and more reliable as our dependence on it increases day by day. So, you have to pay attention to what you are powering that internet with and if it is capable of withstanding that traffic in the long run.

This article is Originally Posted Here; Cat 8 Cables: Soon to be a Boon in An Average User’s Life

Jennifer Truong is the owner of SF Cable, a california based online retailer of all kind of Computers, electronics, electrical accessories, networking accessories, cables, wires. Jennifer has extensive experience in the Electronics industry and blog.