Boriy wrote

p.s here UTP cat 6 cost about 0.40$ (0.34€) for meter

 

UTP or U/UTP stands for Unshielded Twisted Pair. UTP CAT.5e cable here costs ~0.20€ per meter. UTP CAT.6 cable is seldomly sold, hard to find here (except as short patch cables for connections between wall jackets and end-user devices).

 

You need Individual Shield (U/FTP) or Overall Shield (F/UTP, S/UTP, and SF/UTP) or Individual and Overall Shield (F/FTP, S/FTP, and SF/FTP) CAT.5e cables. CAT.6 does not have any advantage for Gigabit connections except for the uplinks from the access switches on the floors to the core switch in preparation of future 10 Gbps bandwidth. But then you could also use fiber cables for those uplinks.

 

Shielded cables usually cost between 0.70€ up to 2.00€ per meter depending on the quality, shielding, features etc. 

 

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twisted_pair#Cable_shielding and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twisted_pair#Building_infrastructure.

 

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twisted_pair#Solid-core_vs._stranded_cable for why I recommend cable with solid wires, not cheap patch cable with stranded wires. Also read the following sections »Advantages« and »Disadvantages« to get an idea why selection of the correct cable is important, especially for 90m lengths.

 

Boriy wrote

I've asked a few people, who sell EAP-225 (EAP-235 not available yet) here and they told us, Cat 6 SFTP would fit it.

 

EAP 225-Wall has 100 Mbps interfaces and CAT.6 cable is totally oversized for 100 Mbps.

 

If you ask sales people or electricians whether CAT.8 would fit, they would say: yes, it fits. It fits especially very well in their purse when it comes to pay for the cable.

 

I believe you we're referring to the connectors, that's bigger and offer more cable lose protection. Like this:

The one above, it has blue attachment, that will hold cable still and will not move it.

 

Above is a Hirose TM11 CAT.5e-compatible plug, it's printed on the plastic sleeve.

 

The Hirose TM21 CAT.6-compatible plug is even larger. This is a TM21 on a DRAKA UC900 cable, which I use as patch cables:

 

 

 

That's why I recommend TC-CON for flush-mounted boxes: it's very small in size, has shielding and holds the cable since the foil shield and the cable is crimped into the plug:

 

 

 

I think you should get an EAP-Wall (whether 225 or 235 doesn't matter), check the space limitations of your flush-mounted boxes and then decide about cables, plugs etc.

 

You now know about different cables and plug types. There is no point in discussing it further before you have verified that the cable and the plug will fit into the box and can still be assembled.

 

If CAT.6 cables with TM21 plugs do fit, then use those. In my flush-mounted boxes those plugs do not fit, else I would use it.

 

But it definitely makes no sense to use a TM11 with CAT.6 cables. In this case even the plug would not fit on the CAT.6 cable!

 

 

Boriy wrote
Since each floor will have it's own PoE switch, the maximum length from switch to the last room (far away) should be around 50 meters. Most people told us to consider Cat 6 over 5E, becuuse it has less noise.

 

From Wikipedia:

 

Category 6 cable (Cat 6), is a standardized twisted pair cable for Ethernet and other network physical layers that is backward compatible with the Category 5/5e and Category 3 cable standards.

 

Cat 6 has to meet more stringent specifications for crosstalk and system noise than Cat 5 and Cat 5e. The cable standard specifies performance of up to 250 MHz, compared to 100 MHz for Cat 5 and Cat 5e.[1]

 

Whereas Category 6 cable has a reduced maximum length of 55 metres (180 ft) when used for 10GBASE-T, Category 6A cable is characterized to 500 MHz and has improved alien crosstalk characteristics, allowing 10GBASE-T to be run for the same 100-metre (330 ft) maximum distance as previous Ethernet variants.

 

 

CAT.6 will not have »less noise« when used with 100 or 1,000 Mbps. It's just designed to prevent cross-talking and interferences when used with up to 250 MHz signals as in 10 Gbps networks.

 

Electromagnetic interferences from nearby cables (Ethernet, mains power, whatever) are affected by physical distance between cables and by a proper shielding. Cross-talking is affected by pair-wise shielding and by anti-cross-talk dividers (such as in your first photo):

 

 

Of course you can use CAT.6 cable with appropriate plugs to interconnect the switches. But a properly shielded CAT.6 cable will not give better results than a properly shielded CAT.5e cable when used with 1,000 Mbps. If you choose CAT.6 b/c you plan to use 10 Gbps some time in the future, remember that max. cable length is 55m unless you use CAT.6A.

 

Personally, I used CAT.7 solid wire cables for the cabling between patch panels and wall sockets and either CAT.5e or CAT.7 (DRAKA UC900) patch cables with stranded wires – but CAT.7 cables with cheaper CAT.6 plugs for now – to connect devices to those wall sockets.

 

If I ever will have a 10 Gbps device, I just have to crimp a Hirose TM31 CAT.7-compatible plugs on such a patch cable and upgrade the wall socket to CAT.7, but do not need to exchange any cable in the cable ducts.

 

In my opinion, CAT.6 is not worth considering, not for 1,000 Mbps nor for 10 Gbps and definitely not for 100 Mbps.

 

But you can use it if you want, no problem.

 

Boriy wrote

We're considering EAP 235 over EAP 225, because it has this technologies: 

• MU-MIMO
• Band Steering
• Beamforming

 

Every device which has MU-MIMO (including the EAP225-Wall, which has MU-MIMO, too) must support Beamforming.

Without beamforming no MU-MIMO and vice versa.

 

Why don't you just compare the specs of the two models? There are not that much differences, just the Ethernet interface and power consumption.

 

It can connect far more devices at the same time, but can only handle 2 devices at the same time 

Is that correct ?

 

No, that's wrong.

 

MU-MIMO 2x2 gives two spatial streams and if a device with 2x2 MIMO (such as a MacBook) associates with the EAP and uses 2 spatial streams, no other device can send data to the EAP at the same time. You confuse spatial streams with devices.

 

Do you plan to have parties in those hotel rooms with 60 guests per room all surfing the WLAN?

 

I bet if two guests with 2-4 devices use the same EAP in a room, they won't even notice whether the EAP serves one device after the other or both at the very same time.

 

Are there any other ways to hide both Ethernet cables ? Any recommendations ?  

 

How would you do this with a wired TV, a wired phone and a wired laptop?

 

The laptop has other cables anyway and they will be on the desk (battery charger, probably a mouse or headphones).

 

For the telephone and TV there are cable ducts in all shapes, sizes and materials such as aluminium, which fits perfectly into the interior. Amazon is your friend:

 

https://www.amazon.com/Piece-Cable-Raceway-Duct-White/dp/B00009XSYV

https://www.amazon.com/HAMA-00083168-Aluminium-Duct-Cable/dp/B003LTLSFS

https://www.amazon.com/Stageek-Management-Concealer-Organizer-Computers/dp/B07C9ZWH1H

 

But why don't you ask the hotel owner, the architect or an electrician? All three can offer ways to hide the cables if necessary.

The hotel owner knows the existing ducts, if the hotel doesn't exist, an architect can plan cable ducts and if all this fails, an electrician can hide them in walls even later on.