disadvantage/ more difficult? running cat6 instead of cat5e?

[AlainD]

Hi

I want to pull some extra wired Ethernet in my home.

I don't have new cable lying around and thus need to buy fresh new one.

Is there a disadvantage buying cat6 cable (except a bit higher price)?
Is there an advantage, length's will be less than 25meter?

Are there big quality differences between the cable's (that matter)?

 

[MisterIce]

Really depends on what you are going to use it for.

Cat5e: 1 Gb/s max
Cat6: 10 Gb/s with a max till around 30 meters.

Also cat6 has a tighter twist in the cables, which allows for 2-way communication on each pair of wires and cat5e doesn't have this feature. Therefore the cat5e cable has a tendency to have a higher delay than cat6 cable.

I wired the house with cat6 because the price was only a 10 cents difference per meter and basically future proofing.

But in a regular household without a high bandwith demand you are perfectly fine with a cat5e cable.

 

[jgreco]

Cat6 is probably the way to go, unless the cost differential is too great. But read on.

Cat5e is mainly a figment of the imagination. There's a lot of stuff that claims to be "Cat5e" but the "e" is just "enhanced" over Cat5, and there's frighteningly little standardization as to what the enhancement might be. In recent years, it's trended to be enhanced MHz. And that can be 350MHz or even 550MHz, which far exceeds the requirement for Cat6, which leads to a perverse situation where Cat5e 550MHz could be *better* than Cat6. That's because Cat6 only specifies 250MHz, though you can find it at up to 550MHz. In many ways, this is the more-important bit. And Cat6A improves on the requirements a bit more.

All of it will be absolutely fine for 1Gbps ethernet. But if you want to future-proof and increase the chances of being able to run 10GbE successfully in the future, select a nice Cat6 550MHz cable. These days, usually the cost differential is modest.

 

[AlainD]

Thanks for the info


Brrr The first (and until now only) cat6 550MHz I did find was cheap CCA cable.

 

[droeders]

IIRC, Cat6 is a bit more efficient in Power Over Ethernet applications as well. Not nearly as critical as running 10Gb in the future, but just another reason to favor quality Cat6 cable.

 

[jgreco]

Thanks for the info


Brrr The first (and until now only) cat6 550MHz I did find was cheap CCA cable.

This stuff: http://www.cablematters.com/pc-166-...cm-shielded-sstpsftp-ethernet-bulk-cable.aspx

is what we've been running lately, but I'll warn you that it's a bit of work to get used to. 600MHz, full copper (not CCA), each pair separately shielded. 23 gauge copper so it is *really* nice if you're distributing PoE.

 

[Ericloewe]

This stuff: http://www.cablematters.com/pc-166-...cm-shielded-sstpsftp-ethernet-bulk-cable.aspx

is what we've been running lately, but I'll warn you that it's a bit of work to get used to. 600MHz, full copper (not CCA), each pair separately shielded. 23 gauge copper so it is *really* nice if you're distributing PoE.

Sounds expensive... I got TE connectivity 1.2GHz cable with similar specs the other day for 71 cents per meter - couldn't find anything that was Cat. 6a and fire-retardant (and white - the cable may need to be exposed in some places), so I ended up with this overkill of a cable.

 

[AlainD]

This stuff: http://www.cablematters.com/pc-166-...cm-shielded-sstpsftp-ethernet-bulk-cable.aspx

is what we've been running lately, but I'll warn you that it's a bit of work to get used to. 600MHz, full copper (not CCA), each pair separately shielded. 23 gauge copper so it is *really* nice if you're distributing PoE.

Well I found some cat6A that's up to spec. The 23 awg is indeed nice for PoE.

http://www.digitus-professional.com/en/products/cables/installation-cables/dk-1623-a-vh-5/

It's also 7mm diameter, which gives me hope to pull 2 off them through a short piece of tube that's 14mm inside diameter, just to get 2 off them through the concrete floor and add 1 dual box to terminate them.

I also found rj45's to terminate them so directly at the switch, to avoid some patch panels and extra connections. (Not to be used for commercial buildings.) I've seen an instruction video and it seems rather easy to do.

https://www.amazon.de/dp/B01BTVPUIA/ref=twister_B01BTVPR06?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

Alain
.