maximum length of network cable

I always thought it was 300m, and I've certainly ran cables over 100m with no trouble.
 
100m is the max for a single length of cat5. I believe you can extend this with a max of 3 switches to a total of 300m, but I have never been bored enough to try it :)
 
100m is max, however you can use repeaters to extend beyond this reach. the signal in the cable degrades so needs to be re-sent.

although 100 meters is max id try and stick below, say 80-90m to avoid any issues. also make sure there is slack at both ends of the cable in case you move.
 
100 metres is the max length before you need to retime the signal. You can actually go over this length, but the signal degrades dramtically which means a loss of packets.

I haven't actually needed to install Cat5 cable that runs over 100 metres, but when I was at college we done a test to see if its possible to go over 100 metres, but this resulted in a lot of lost packets.
 
yeah, at 100 meters the cable will prolly drop an acceptable ammount of packets. how far exactly does the cable need to run, if its about 120 meters try it and note the packet loss, also shileded cable may help enhance the length slightly especially if your running it around other eletrics
 
STP wouldn't really enhance the signal by any great amount. The shielding only helps from outside interference, and its the natural properties of the copper that restricts Cat5 cable to 100m.
 
yeah, but when you run a cable 100 meters its more likely to pick up interference. which is why i said especially if you are running past other electical stuff.
 
Even with STP, you will still have packet loss over 100m. You can put all the shielding around the cable as you want, you will still have packet loss because of the natural properties of the copper cable.
 
100m is the official Cat5 standard, there are some proprietrary Cat5 plus/enhanced that will run further.

You can then use hubs, bridges switches, max of 2 inline to make a distance of 305 metres in total for a collision domain.

This is a figure for the solid cable, as opposed to the cable that you make flyleads from which is stranded.
 
I was under the impression it was 100 meter to archive 100m/b and up to 300 for 10m/b.

However these are theoretical. If you need a 100 meter run really you should be using fibre.
 
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