[lug] comparing cat 5e and cat 6 cables

[Lee Woodworth]

Dean Brissinger wrote:
> On Tuesday, December 27, 2005 2:26 PM Matt Thompson wrote:
> 
> 
>>On Tue, 2005-12-27 at 11:56 -0700, Dean Brissinger wrote:
>>
>>>On Monday, December 26, 2005 5:17 PM D. Stimits wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>What's the story about which cable to use and when? I'm interested
>>>>in comparing for both 100 Mbit and gigabit.
>>>
>>>Cat5E is all you need for 10/100/1000.  Cat6 is said to support 10G
>>
>>Or, you can go all out and the Cat 7+ cables on this page:
>>
>>http://www.amabilidade2002.com/data4.htm
>>
>>It's like the networking equivalent of audiophiles buying $1000 power
>>cords with tungsten in them or whatnot. 
> 
> 
> Actually, worth mentioning a small source of possible confusion...  Cat5
> is only rated for 100BT and in practice often only can handle 10.  Cat5e
> on the other hand will handle up to GigE.  Not sure if that's where the
> original confusion came from or not.
When GigE was first coming out, I remember reading that Cat5 cabling
was supposed to be good enough. This assumed that all 4 pairs were
used instead of 2 pairs being used for 100BT.

Has this changed? Netgear says 'UTP Category 5 or better cables' required
for the GS108, a full duplex 1000BT switch.

The wall jacks are a bigger concern for signal degradation than
CAT5 cable, even for 100BT. So is Cat5E/6 just marketing hype?


> 
> 
> 
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