cat 5 or cat 6 for home and mixing them

happyhero

Hi I used to be an electrician so I have cable knowledge but not much about network cable so I have read up on it and can see that the "e" means that the cable is screened.

Seeing that cat 6 is better than cat 5 and not a great difference in cost, I am thinking always buy the best i.e. like you would with speaker cable for instance. I realise I do not need cat 6 full potential for home but then that is not the reason you buy the best, I am thinking slightly better cable will insure the maximum potential of my home system but please correct me if I am wrong as I am a bit amateur with this stuff.

It seems that mostly the systems cat5 and cat6 are conpatable i.e. all plug into each other, except I have read about the difference in the gauge of the wire so using the wrong connectors will not fit as tightly or too tightly I assume the other way round.

I think the screened may be a good idea as it may potentially get close to either power cables or aerial cables that are already run although I will try to avoid this but again correct me if I am wrong.

I thought I would go to one of my electrical wholesalers I used to use and get some cat 6e cable and some plates that fit straight on back boxes in the wall and then fit the clip in modules into them to give a neat finish with sockets ready to plug into, only problem is it seems harder to get all the stuff in cat6e cat5, cat5e and some cat6 cables and parts are available but they do not seem to stock a full range of cat6e items if any in the electrical wholesalers I tried. I know I could look elsewhere but i am more interested in what I can do so here are my questions.

Can I run cat6e everywhere and then just use cat5e modules in the sockets for instance, I mean surely the important part of achieving cat6e standard is that the cable is the right type so surely a change of a module type at the connection point wont make a great difference?

Also is it crazy of me to go for cat6e in the home or is a there a bit of benefit to doing this i.e a slight improvement and more future proof as a bonus?

I see network cables available on Ebay, apart from being conned, is cat6e cable cat6e cable or could they be cat6e cable but crappy quality?

I have noticed that nearly all the cables you get with pc equipment seems to be cat5 but I was still thinking cat6e would be good for the long runs, what do you think?

Any advice/help/info appreciated

A.Penny.Saved

STP - shielded twisted pair
UTP - unshielded twisted pair

Shielded sounds good but unless they are properly grounded, they don't really help much. The cables are twisted which helps prevent electrical noise.

Cat 5,5e, 6, 6a not 6e are just about their specification and their rated speeds. STP and UTP define whether they are shielded.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_5_cable
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_6_cable

Guardsman

I use both and notice no difference but then again I'm not using them in a nuclear power station

esuhl

The "e" doesn't indicate that the cable is "screened". Cat 5, 5e and 6 tend to have the cables in an unshielded twisted pair (UTP) configuration.

Cat 5 is suitable for network speeds up to 100Mb/s.
Cat 5e is suitable for network speeds up to 1Gb/s.

Cat 6 performs a little better than Cat 5e, and (in theory) can support speeds of up to 10Gb/s (although in practice, it's usually closer to 1Gb/s).

There is little benefit of using Cat 6 over Cat 5e. Domestic routers cannot utilise the greater potential bandwidth of the signal and Cat 6 costs more.

Enterprise_1701C

Stick to Cat 5e, a lot easier all round, and it will be a good few years before you would get close to needing Cat 6 in a home environment.

What do you call long runs? Cat 5e is fine up to about 100 metres.

When you cable the modules please use an IDC tool as opposed to a screwdriver, and do not strip the cable back any further than you have to. We recently had to test some cabling that had been done by an electrician and, because he had stripped the cable back too far, we could not pass it to the standard they wanted.

jbainbridge

Indeed - given the choice I would use cat 5e - it's a lot easier to work with.

happyhero

Enterprise_1701C wrote: »

When you cable the modules please use an IDC tool as opposed to a screwdriver,

Hi thanks for all the help everyone .

The IDC tool looks like the same one I have for telephone sockets, is it the same one?

With the stripping back I will do as you advise and strip a minimal amount but in practice when you say you could not pass it is that because it will actually make a noticeable difference or is it just to
meets the requirements of the rating ie cat 5 or 5e etc?

I am fussy so I would always do everything to the highest standard but it is nice to actually understand why rather than just do it because your were told to and I imagine I would not notice it if it were stripped back too much, i.e with signal loss etc, but please correct me if I am wrong.

Lum

If you're installing RJ45 sockets then there is no reason not to go with Cat6 or 6a as the installation procedure is the same and the difference in price is negligible, just use that punchdown tool, yes the one for telephone sockets works for this too. May as well go for the most future proof installation.

Making cat6 or 6a patch leads is a pain though. Just buy them or use cat5e ones for now as these are trivial to upgrade later.

Enterprise_1701C

happyhero wrote: »

Hi thanks for all the help everyone .

The IDC tool looks like the same one I have for telephone sockets, is it the same one?

With the stripping back I will do as you advise and strip a minimal amount but in practice when you say you could not pass it is that because it will actually make a noticeable difference or is it just to
meets the requirements of the rating ie cat 5 or 5e etc?

I am fussy so I would always do everything to the highest standard but it is nice to actually understand why rather than just do it because your were told to and I imagine I would not notice it if it were stripped back too much, i.e with signal loss etc, but please correct me if I am wrong.

The stripping back would probably not make a lot of difference in a household setting, but it will mean more interference if you are anywhere near electrics or other interference sources.

The IDC tool is the punchdown tool used in telecoms - in all honesty you could use one of the cheap ones, the pro ones cut the wire at the same time though (just don't get it the wrong way round!!)