Confused about cables and connectors.......

spoony77

spoony77

spoony77

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Joined
10 Aug 2005
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387
Hi people,
I'm looking to run some cable around the outside of the house to take my 150mb virgin media.
Im confused about whether I need cat 5,5e or 6 and whether or not standard connectors and faceplates would fit and or lower the speeds if I used cat 6?
Googling tells me cat 5e can do gigabit ethernet but that is actually only 125mbps??
Also will any crimping tool do end connectors and faceplates or only connectors?
Any advice appreciated.
 
Any of those are enough for gigabit (1000BASE-T). Cat 6 is required for 10 gigabit (10GBASE-T).

spoony77 said:
Googling tells me cat 5e can do gigabit ethernet but that is actually only 125mbps??
Click to expand...

Bits and bytes, don't forget your capital b's. 1000 Mbit/s is 125 Mbyte/s.
 
Oh ok so if I buy 25m of cat 5e I should get the same internet speed at the other end?
What about the crimping tool, will they do connectors and wall plates or are they seperate tools?
 
Last edited:
Should get same speed over that short distance
Separate tools crimper puts plugs on the end of the cables/patch leads
Krone tool pushes cable into sort of teeth in a socket box/faceplate
 
Get a length of external grade Cat5e and punch it down to Cat5e rated faceplates at both ends. The only specialised tool you'll need is the punch down tool, and for two faceplates you'd get away with a disposable plastic version.

Make sure the tool matches the faceplate. Most are Krone but some are 110 which are subtly different.

If you need patch cords buy them premade. Life too short for making your own under most circumstances.
 
id look at the cost of the wire, if it isnt much id go cat6, maybe its only slightly better and uneeded, but gives more potential. but its ment to be harder to bend? so theres that downside too
 
If you're routing outside the smaller bend radius of Cat5e is worth having. External grade cable is already fairly stiff. You could use internal grade cable but I wouldn't.

In the unlikely event that you need to support 10GBe and the Cat5e won't handle it an external cable is easy to replace.
 
joeyjojo said:
Is that official or do most 5e cables just happen to be good enough? Can't see it specified anywhere.

You're correct about the 6 giving a max distance of 55 m, thanks. Cat6a will go up to 100 m.
Click to expand...

Seems a lot of conflicting info out there about 10gig on 5e. Cat.6 isn't that bad to install so perhaps worth it just in case. I wouldn't recommend Cat.6A unless the runs are long enough to warrant it, it's quite a bit more effort for installation.
 
I know people say lay 6 for"future proofing" but we're a long long way away from consumer/home devices and/or routers having 10 gig, damn a lot of the ISPs routers dont even have 1 gig ports.

Cat5e be fine - if you live near West Yorkshire, I have lots of external cat5e if you want any, about 200m
 
I did this recently and made two 30m runs with external grade cat5e. Easy to work with and cheap. No need for cats in the foreseeable.
 
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