Is it ok to leave shielded Cat6 ungrounded?

tommusrol · 26 May 2021 at 09:43

I’m getting an electrician to run some Ethernet cables around my house when he rewires it. He’s strongly suggesting that I use shielded Ethernet cable as it will cross over with the electrical cables at some points. He’s also saying there is no need to ground it. I was interested to know if there were any disadvantages of leaving shielded cable ungrounded, or if there was anything I needed to worry about?

I guess I could look at grounding the cables but I’m a bit overwhelmed by it all - as hoping to only use a basic switch, and from this run some cables to wireless access points using POE and a couple of sockets in the walls in bedrooms.

Dg834man · 26 May 2021 at 11:16

Might as well use unshielded if your not grounding it, crossing electrical cables is unavoidable most of the time its not a problem, long runs of data next to power cables is.

bremen1874 · 26 May 2021 at 12:58

There's no problem crossing mains cables with unshielded network cables. There's also no problem running them alongside for short distances.

Having seen the mess some electricians can make of network cabling, I'd wonder if he actually knows what he's doing (on the networking side).

Caged · 26 May 2021 at 14:12

In my experience people greatly overstate the issues that mains cables running close to data cables can cause. In a domestic environment the currents are low and the EM field is going to be negligible. I wouldn't put data cabling in the same containment as power (and you can't anyway), or clip it alongside on the same joist for a 20m run, but you won't have problems unless you're trying to cause them.

Shielded cabling will cause more problems than it solves, especially if you don't plan on actually grounding the shield. It will also push your costs up for no worthwhile reason.

tommusrol · 26 May 2021 at 14:27

Thanks everyone. This has been really useful. I’m going unshielded

Caged · 26 May 2021 at 18:03

Think of it like this - you're better off putting in quality Cat6 which is solid copper than some electrical wholesaler special shielded cable that is impossible to find a datasheet for.

russ9898 · 26 May 2021 at 23:24

Caged said:
Think of it like this - you're better off putting in quality Cat6 which is solid copper than some electrical wholesaler special shielded cable that is impossible to find a datasheet for.

Agreed. I generally use Excel branded cable, it has always served me well.