Cat6 Direct Burial Bulk Ethernet Cable, Shielded F/UTP, 1000ft, Black, 23AWG Solid Bare Copper, Heavy Duty Outdoor OSP Jacket, Waterproof, UV Resistant, 550MHz, PoE++ 100W (4PPoE)

Superior cable! First, I install WiFi APs and PoE cameras where the cables often run outside. My requirements for the cabling are UV stability, thick outer jacket for weather resistance (ice, snow, wind), shielding, drain wire for grounding, and quality construction overall. This cable exceeds my requirements on all levels. Now, this is THICK stuff--far thicker than many have worked with. Once you know this going in, and what to buy and how to compensate, then you will do fine. Go in blindly and without the correct tools or research and you will be so frustrated that you won't want to try cable like this again. You might leave a bad review, and quite undeserved, just because you didn't know what you were doing. Here are the general rules: 1. Buy the PROPER shielded connectors. Now, not all RJ45 connectors are the same. Most are built to accept a different maximum conductor diameter and/or overall outside diameter (OD). For the most part, with this cable, the primary concern is the OD. The cable OD happens to be 7.8 mm. This means your connector selection is limited and you will need to know how to ovalize the end of the cable jacket prior to insertion/termination. You may need to even add a small amount of dielectric grease to the very end of the cable jacket to ease insertion. I use, and ONLY use, Platinum Tools EXO EX RJ45 connectors, model 48 with external ground. That connector is spec'd for jacket max OD of 7.75mm but it is close enough and while being a tight fit it will reward you with the fact that there are no bars or liners to deal with. The conductors will come out of the front of the connector where you can verify proper TIA 568A/B wiring sequence prior to termination. Another important point is this connector will let you tug on the wires and help to pull everything through to minimize kinks as the cable jacket seats. The EXO EX crimp tool crimps and trims the conductors in one cycle...nearly eliminating the possibility of a bad crimp as long as you do your part. 2. Buy the PROPER strip tool. You really have two options...use the string inside the cable to strip the jacket back if you don't have or don't want to buy the right tool for concentric stripping. If you use the "flay back" method you will then need to be sure the jacket is concentric as you cut the jacket off. It does not help to have a ragged jacket while you are trying to seat it inside a connector! As far as strip tools...again I use a Platinum Tools Cyclops. I use the MAX setting and it slices quite well and creates a nice concentric cut. It WILL also cut off the AL shielding in the process but not make it through the cloth water proofing tape which seems to be a cut barrier. In this case, you don't want to fold back that AL shield anyway since it would make it impossible to fight the cable into ANY connector. You will rely on the drain wire. 3. KNOW how to comb out kinks. This is CAT6E which has very tight twists and thick gauge wire. Some people use their fingers or a piece of cable jacket. Yikes. If you value you thumb and fingers...simply use a metal rounded tool like the shaft of a screw driver to remove all kinks from the end of the cable jacket all the way out. Be patient. 4. IF you are highly experienced and don't mind some bad terminations from time to time you can opt for a big CAT6A shielded connector that uses bars/liners but be prepared for an exercise in frustration because the cable spline will do all it can to keep you from perfectly lining up the conductors which will lead to conductors kinking while inserting your load bar assembly into the connector. Hence, my personal insistence on the Platinum Tools EXO EX connectors. Now, here is the construction of this cable from the outside in: PE UV Stable jacket, OD is 7.8 mm Rip cord AL foil (not metal coated mylar...actual foil) Tinned copper ground wire Cloth wrap/water proof tape Conductors arranged into 4 parts Spline I ran the entire spool of this cable and terminated either to CAT6 shielded jacks or shielded connectors and I have no issues at all. The cable does not kink up nearly as easily as standard thickness cable, but it will kink up if you are not watching. The jacket is somewhat slick like it was coated with a light wax but use cable lube inside conduit. I did make use of dielectric grease at the very lip of the cable jacket going into connectors. This will not hurt your termination or cause degradation.

This is a great cat 6a cable. It is very thick because of the extra shielding. It is not intended for home use though. It is a specific cable for specific applications. It will not fit traditional plastic or even metal shielded terminals. It has a metal drain wire in with the shield as well as a thread to cut down the plastic sheath. The wire gauges to 23awg as advertised, but the insulation is thicker than expected., so again it will not fit traditionsl terminals. It does fit the tool less terminals found on Amazon though. They are not cheap, but make child’s play out of terminating and dealing with the shield, drain, and thick insulation. As far as cat 6a cable goes this is the creme de la creme if you know what you are doing and how to use it. Alternative to expensive RJ45 terminal you could terminate it onto a patch block. Anyway... we used this cable in an underground conduit 250’ right over another conduit carrying 480v. The other cat 6 that was there degrading quickly and picked up alot of emi, as one would expect. It also suffered from moderate cross talk. We had the option of running fiber optic in the conduit to the tune of $1800, or try this. This cable saved the day! Speeds went up from 18/6 (on a good day) to 58/42. No crosstalk. No emi. I’d like to think my fabulous skills as an electrician made this happen, but it was this cable quality. It is that good!

Very good product for burial cable

This is great cable. I've buried about 300 feet to POE cameras with no discernable bandwidth loss. This is 23 AWG wire, so use a proper connector. I used Cat7 Cat6A Pass Through Shielded RJ45 Connectors. The cable is quite robust. I do not envision any problems with breakage.

I ran 933 ft (284m) of the entire roll with a Ubiquiti Long-Range Ethernet Repeater (UACC-LRE) every 300ft (100m). These are powered via a Ubiquity USW-Ultra-210W GbE PoE+. The entire run sustains full Gigabit speed without unexpected transmission errors. The cable is marked on the jacket on every foot to keep track of usage. The foil shielding is rugged and does not rip easily, which was a requirement for continuous continuity. The drain wire was 'right-sized' for its job and was easy to manipulate. The pair twist rate was consistent throughout the entire length of the spool; in other cheaper options, this is not the case. The jacket was durable and yet still easy to work with.

Durable outside jacket-between jack and pair separation channel member --stiff but solid cable. Internal pairs are indeed a good 23AWG great for carrying more POE DC power and less signal attenuation. For clarity, it is a single aluminum foil outside shield with drain wire. The individual pairs are not shielded. No water barrier gel but easier to work with for those who know OSP cable. Given proper CAT6 terminations and terminating, the cable passes the rate 550MHz signals for attenuation, crosstalk and SNR to name a few. A solid 1Gbps for our project. It is a good quality retail cable which is a great value for the money and through Amazon was delivered quickly to our doorstop in time for the intended project. CAT Approved--We can only say that running the cable through standard penetrations not exceeding maximum pull rating, the cable was durable. We can not say without a longevity test or submersion how well it does with long term UV exposure or water penetration but cable construction is of good quality.

I ran 150ft of the cable from the modem in my main house to my coach house. Lost less than 10% Mbps down & up. Completely satisfied.