As of today, we utilize approximately one-half of a Cat6 cable’s power throughput potential. This type of technology – PoE-driven IOT products, low voltage controls and sensors, and automation – consistently favors energy-reductive goals to improve efficiency. The industry, the government (DOE), and the power utilities all incentivize reductive measures. So, in the unlikely situation where the next generation of PoE LED Lighting will evolve to become more wasteful instead of more efficient, we can be confident that the Cat6 wiring will be adequate to support up to double the current power throughput. We also use special assemblies to aggregate power distribution and reduce overall wiring. Once those are removed, the CAT6 infrastructure can be used with any system that uses conventional ethernet for power, connectivity, or both. Taking it a step further – while CAT7 and CAT8 may become the standard for communicating gigabit and multi-gigabit data packets across a digital network, they have not been merited with improving power resiliency as the copper gauge remains 23 for standard, 22 for plus or enhanced – the same as now with premium Cat6. As we don’t expect PoE lighting to fizzle, we can conclude that today’s PoE wiring infrastructure will be more than sufficient 15-20 years from now. And in the unlikely event that we need to supply more power to the future PoE lighting, we can double it.
