I’ve never worked with Cat6/6a, only Cat5e. I know 6 is thicker and harder to maneuver, but how much I can’t say from actual experience. I also know that 6a is even thicker and harder to manage.

I want a 10GBASE-T network throughout my 4k sqft home. My network runs terminate in a closet under the stairs on the first floor. There are some runs to interior rooms on the second floor where the run length is concerning to me.

I know Cat6 supports it up to a maximum of 55 meters (180 feet), but more realistically the ANSI/TIA standard distance limit is 120 feet (based on environment) because of cable to cable cross-talk in large/tightly bound bundles. I’m just not sure how large a bundle would cause that cross-talk concern. Cat6a supports 10GBASE-T at the full 100 meters (328 feet).

I measured the length of my house (interior walls) as well as height from first floor to second floor ceiling. Wall-to-Wall is 19.5 meters (64 ft), floor to ceiling is 6 meters (20 ft).

This means I should be able to, theoretically, run a cable from an exterior wall down into my crawl space, across the whole crawl space (~19.5m/64 ft), up the other exterior wall into the attic (~6m/20 ft), and all the way across the house again (19.5m), and back down another 6m and still be under the 55m limit for Cat6, but if I run all of my first-to-second floor wires near each other in a single wall cavity then I’m worried that cross-talk will reduce that 55m limit down to 33m.

In total I want to run about 24 drops, about half of which will travel up to the second floor.

Am I over-analyzing this? My fear of Cat6a comes from everyone saying its horrible to work with and doesn’t take corners well, as well as just how many cables I’ll be able to fit in my cabinet comfortably. Will Cat6 serve my purpose, even at these longer lengths?

Also, if I go with Cat6, should I go spineless or spine?