Cat6 CCA or Cat5e Pure Copper
Including aluminum in conductors decreases cost for the manufacturer. If the cable meets the various specifications for impedance, crosstalk, etc and the cable is run within spec (bend radius, proximity to interference, strain) then the materials utilized for the conductor don't matter.
The physical difference between cat5e and cat6 has to do with the number of twists per inch and, potentially, the inclusion of shielding. The result of these changes is that the cable can (minimally) support higher bandwidth, specifically 10GE in this case. The other cable (5e) isn't rated to support these kinds of speeds but very well might work in practice.
If you're looking to future-proof for 10GE (or more) then go for 6a or 7. If you're just setting up basic 100M or GE then it doesn't make much difference. 5e and 6 are fairly close in price. The distances involved are quite low, which renders any difference theoretical at best. In summary? There won't be any practical benefit either way.
I may be behind the times, but in my world there is no such thing as CAT6 Copper Clad Aluminum wiring, or indeed Cat 5 or 5e. Copper Clad Aluminum (CCA) wire does not meet ANSI/TIA, ISO OR EN specifications and so should not be labelled as such.
CCA cable can be used for networks with only short runs and will work if expectations are not high. However, Aluminum corrodes on contact with air which results in lots of post installation problems. Also because of the higher resistance, CCA cable should not be used for Power-Over-Ethernet. It's OK for some applications but it is NOT CAT5 or CAT6 even if it says so on the box!
It has the following problems:
It's very fragile. It appears that the conductors can break inside the jacket with no obvious damage to the jacket. Sometimes just attempting to remove the jacket will break the conductors.
Insulation displacement connectors will likely pierce the copper plating and make contact with the aluminum, creating a weak spot where the wire will break and also creating a spot where the aluminum can corrode.
It does not comply with NEC. The NEC requires the use of copper conductors for communications cable (except for coax, which often has a copper clad steel center conductor). As a result, it is an electrical code violation to install this cable where NEC rules apply.
Apparently the fragile nature of CCA wire makes it difficult to maintain the pair geometry required for cat5e/cat6 performance during the manufacturing process.
Now for some real-world experience:
About 150 feet of this CCA stuff was installed...allegedly cat5e cable.
It would not link up at gigabit speeds so 100 meg was tried.
It linked up at 100 meg.
A few weeks later the link started flapping. Users complained. The BOSS asked what was going on.
Attempts to re-terminate the cable to fix the link flapping resulted in no link at all...not even at 10 meg.
Not until different pairs were tried did the link come back up.
Due to the concerns that the cable would likely fail again, the CCA cable was replaced with real copper cable, which took the better part of a day.
All because someone saved probably $40 by buying CCA cable.
So, should you use CCA cable?
IF you can answer yes to the following questions, I enthusiastically recommend that you use CCA cable:
- Do you like random, unpredictable network failures?
- Do you like re-doing things?
- Do you like explaining to your boss or your users why the network failed?
- Do you like working with cable with conductors that break at the slightest insult?
- Do you like to save a few bucks now to spend hours later?
- Do you like to be "penny wise, pound foolish"?
- Is your time worth very little?
- Do you need a pull-string to use for when you install the copper cable you should have used in the first place?