you must ground the shielded cable or it does nothing.
I all that really true?
I agree that shielded cables has to be grounded, otherwise they don't work as being a Gigabit cable (Cat6)
But to keep emf out the shield by itself only should be doing something... Maybe not the best but better than nothing?
The shield act as a ´cage of faraday` and such cage also functions without grounding..... proof is a car that is a perfect shield against electricity (lightning strike!) and inside a container on a trailer your mobile phone or wifi device has almost no more receipt of any signal... in both instances perfect insulation from the earth!
So although your statement is right in the first wordings the last two words are not completely true imho.
Reason to start this discussion:
I use many CPE's with plastic housing, some suggested to use shielded utp cable to bring the earth inside the clients house where the shield could be connected to any part of the house earth grid.
But many houses in my region are very poor earthed themselves and some are all wood! Earthing consists out of a earth network connected to a simple copper rod driven 15cm (!) into the powder dry soil!
Would it now makes no sense at all to earth CPE's, cables etc? or is some shielding better than nothing? Or maybe it is even worse in this case!
(One electrician keeps telling me that the use of shielded UTP cable while not properly grounded is actually worse than using normal unshielded cable.....9