CAT6 UTP/FTP

ShivP

ShivP

ShivP

Soldato
Soldato
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Hi all,

I need to buy a box of ethernet Cat6. Question: do I get UTP or FTP? Super confused after some research on what I should be getting. Cable will be used exclusively indoors
Secondly, most of my house is wired with CAT5E but I assume I will be able to use CAT6 through the wall RJ45 wall plates and ethernet switches (i.e. CAT5E cable to CAT6 cable?)

Thanks
 
It may be nearby to devices like AV amp power cables, PC/TV power cables etc...

Any negatives of going FTP even if it's not going to have a likelihood of interference?
 
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GaryTheSnail said:
Then personally I would go FTP. Just my opinion though, you probably won't have any problems in the grand scheme of things but why risk it?
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Without shielded connectors and patch panels, shielding can make things worse (by acting as an antenna)

Also op don't mix cat5e and cat6 parts - your cabling is only as good as the weakest link.
 
Cat5e vs. Cat6 has a measurable performance difference though, such as the ability to run 5Gbps which Cat5e isn't rated for, and 10Gbps if the runs are short enough. Buying shielded cabling for a house is guarding against EMI that doesn't exist because it's a house and not somewhere with loads of motors or MRI scanners, except you get to spend about 40% more on all the components.
 
Caged said:
Cat5e vs. Cat6 has a measurable performance difference though, such as the ability to run 5Gbps which Cat5e isn't rated for, and 10Gbps if the runs are short enough. Buying shielded cabling for a house is guarding against EMI that doesn't exist because it's a house and not somewhere with loads of motors or MRI scanners, except you get to spend about 40% more on all the components.
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Then you need to spend more money buying the other things to support running at those speeds lol.
 
It's an option. All I can contribute is my personal opinion, and I wouldn't want to spend time installing Cat5e when it takes the same amount of time to install Cat6.
 
Back many years ago, I grabbed the only available Cat6 solid core available, it was Foil/Shielded. The multi-gang modules installed onto the boxes on the wall were not of the shielded variety however, so the Foil/Shield is not being used properly by grounding them (also only using switches and multi-gang boxes attached to the wall). Acting as antennae as said above.

I have yet to obtain the other parts to start multi-gigabit testing, so I can't really comment on that, but for a 1gb network, shielded or unshielded probably isn't an issue. The run lines of each here is 5m and 10-11m only (15' and 30-33' only) so there shouldn't be any noticeable difference for gigabit speeds that I can tell if your lines are also not overly long with either variety.
 
Most of the house is wired with CAT5E, but I assume I can carry on using CAT 6 for the new cabling and this should work fine with the existing CAT 5E?
 
ShivP said:
Most of the house is wired with CAT5E, but I assume I can carry on using CAT 6 for the new cabling and this should work fine with the existing CAT 5E?
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It will work fine, but the whole link is only as good as the weakest part of the Chain.

e.g. the following is Cat6 compliant
Device -> Cat 6 patch cable-> Cat6 patch panel-> Cat 6 Solid UTP Cable -> Cat6 euro module/face plate -> Cat 6 patch cable -> Device

the following wouldn't be
Device -> Cat 5e patch cable-> Cat6 patch panel-> Cat 6 Solid UTP Cable -> Cat6 euro module/face plate -> Cat 5e patch cable -> Device
Device -> Cat 6 patch cable-> Cat5e patch panel-> Cat 6 Solid UTP Cable -> Cat5e euro module/face plate -> Cat 6 patch cable -> Device


And whilst a lot of the time non-compliant cabling will work (especially as gigabit will work fine over almost anything), once you actually come to want 10Gb you may be in for a hard time and encounter random issues.

I've recently experienced this at work as we moved a few servers from 10Gb Fibre to 10Gb copper - we had Cat 6 patch panels, Cat 6 patch leads, but the cable between 2 patch panels was only 5e. For the most part it worked, but every couple of days we'd see a random server disconnect for a few seconds. The cabling between the 2 patch panels was only about 7 meters, so I ran some Cat6A patch cables direct between the affected servers and the switch (taking the same path as the Cat5e) and have had no further issues.
I put it down to it being a full bundle of 24 cat5e cables, and it being in a relatively electrically "noisy" environment, with a rack full of servers, hardwired UPS power cables running in nearby cable tray, and several electrical fuseboxes all within the Server room.

Note that it worked fine at 1Gb, and likely would work fine at 2.5Gb (which I may test when my 2.5Gb network cards arrive)
 
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Armageus said:
It will work fine, but the whole link is only as good as the weakest part of the Chain.

e.g. the following is Cat6 compliant
Device -> Cat 6 patch cable-> Cat6 patch panel-> Cat 6 Solid UTP Cable -> Cat6 euro module/face plate -> Cat 6 patch cable -> Device

the following wouldn't be
Device -> Cat 5e patch cable-> Cat6 patch panel-> Cat 6 Solid UTP Cable -> Cat6 euro module/face plate -> Cat 5e patch cable -> Device
Device -> Cat 6 patch cable-> Cat5e patch panel-> Cat 6 Solid UTP Cable -> Cat5e euro module/face plate -> Cat 6 patch cable -> Device


And whilst a lot of the time non-compliant cabling will work (especially as gigabit will work fine over almost anything), once you actually come to want 10Gb you may be in for a hard time and encounter random issues.

I've recently experienced this at work as we moved a few servers from 10Gb Fibre to 10Gb copper - we had Cat 6 patch panels, Cat 6 patch leads, but the cable between 2 patch panels was only 5e. For the most part it worked, but every couple of days we'd see a random server disconnect for a few seconds. The cabling between the 2 patch panels was only about 7 meters, so I ran some Cat6A patch cables direct between the affected servers and the switch (taking the same path as the Cat5e) and have had no further issues.
I put it down to it being a full bundle of 24 cat5e cables, and it being in a relatively electrically "noisy" environment, with a rack full of servers, hardwired UPS power cables running in nearby cable tray, and several electrical fuseboxes all within the Server room.

Note that it worked fine at 1Gb, and likely would work fine at 2.5Gb (which I may test when my 2.5Gb network cards arrive)
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Yeah, I was only thinking of it in the future if we ever replace the CAT5E with CAT6 cabling, we only need to replace X amount instead of the whole lot. Essentially all the "in wall" ethernet cabling through the house is CAT5E.
What would you recommend? Just go for CAT5E to keep it simple?
I have a box of CCA CAT5E which is obviously not ideal so I'll probably get a box of pure copper FTP/UTP CAT5E if that is what you reckon is best
 
There isn't really a right or wrong answer

Cat5e:
- A little bit cheaper
- Slightly easier to install (cable is more flexible)
- Everything will be standard - no guessing whether cables will or won't do 10Gb - assume they all won't

Cat6:
- less cables to replace in future, as more likely to be 10Gb capable
 
Caged said:
It's in a house, not a manufacturing plant. Shielded is a waste of money.
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Yea I have a mate that's an electrical engineer, and basically said you'd need to run your cable literally tied parallel to some relatively hefty power cables to actually start affecting anything.
 
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