Cat5 & Cat6, please explain

alan13015

I'm building a new house soon and hope to have internet throughout the house and home entertainment system in one room. I've searched through loads of threads and see cat5 and cat6 cable mentioned a lot, can some please explain what i connect this cable to and if it's worth my while getting someone to wire the house with it.
thanks

irlrobins

Short answer: it's ethernet cable used to network computers. (RJ45)

Long answer:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_6_cable
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_5_cable

Could be handy if you have a large house and don't think wireless will reach all areas. Also would be more stable and quicker than wireless, so good if you're having a media server to stream media to different locations.

MunsterCycling

Talk to the sparky thats wiring the house, get them to install Cat. 6 and you will be set for networking / multimedia in every room. Reason I suggest cat.6 is that it will be the standard in future although maybe a bit more costly now. Would at the least get cat 5e installed. Don't miss the oppurtunity to get this done during construction, pain in the you know what to get it done afterwards.

MC


BTW irlrobins when did you make mod? Congrats, I think?

amok

Thanks to this thread if I ever own two cats again I won't have any trouble naming them

WizZard

MunsterCycling wrote:

Talk to the sparky thats wiring the house, get them to install Cat. 6 and you will be set for networking / multimedia in every room. Reason I suggest cat.6 is that it will be the standard in future although maybe a bit more costly now. Would at the least get cat 5e installed. Don't miss the oppurtunity to get this done during construction, pain in the you know what to get it done afterwards.

Please ensure you get them to wire it to a patch panel and not in a ring configuration (Yes, I've seen this happen in "Fully broadband CAT5 wired" houses Yes, sir, of course you can have broadband in every room. Ummm, how??)

MunsterCycling wrote:

BTW irlrobins when did you make mod? Congrats, I think?

I wasn't the only one who noticed then...

irlrobins

WizZard wrote:

I wasn't the only one who noticed then...

Last week. Part of the mod reshuffle.

MunsterCycling

irlrobins wrote:

Last week. Part of the mod reshuffle.

Whats that? Some sort of dance?

MunsterCycling

WizZard wrote:

Please ensure you get them to wire it to a patch panel and not in a ring configuration (Yes, I've seen this happen in "Fully broadband CAT5 wired" houses Yes, sir, of course you can have broadband in every room. Ummm, how??)

Please tell me your kidding? OMFG where were these guys when they handed out the brains... How did they propose to fix it?

WizZard

Mod ReShuffle:

MunsterCycling wrote:

Please tell me your kidding? OMFG where were these guys when they handed out the brains... How did they propose to fix it?

I wish I was kidding. They didn't fix it. I was told that's the way they did it :eek:
You shoulda heard that conversation...

Me: So, where are they terminated?
Sparky/Contractor: Wha'?
M: Terminated? Are they bare wires or is it a patch panel?
S: They're just like, wired.
M: To what?
S: Um... each other?!?! <looks at mate and shrugs>
M: <openmouthed stare>

conzy

Look on the bright side, if you cut it in the middle you will have two networks:D

MunsterCycling

Permission to slap conzy... ah go on go on go on... /makes futile attempt at a slap...

Hope you didn't pay them for anything, not a red cent until its sorted. Would like to see then explain that one in court if they tried to persue it, they'd be laughed out of business.

MC

MunsterCycling

Nice shuffle btw...

alan13015

Thanks lads, great help. think i'll go for the cat6.

po0k

STP CAT6 (shielded, trickier to crimp) if you can afford it.
Irregardless, put ducting in your walls, and modular walljacks.
You can have a wiring closet in the attic, and upgrading to, or adding in, fibre later will hopefully be a matter of dropping the cables down the ducts from the attic.

Hal1

SyxPak wrote:

STP CAT6 (shielded, trickier to crimp) if you can afford it.
Irregardless, put ducting in your walls, and modular walljacks.
You can have a wiring closet in the attic, and upgrading to, or adding in, fibre later will hopefully be a matter of dropping the cables down the ducts from the attic.

Did you say fibre?, who has fibre installed as a backbone in their house and why

WizZard

I agree with the ducting in the walls bit, it's only a small initial cost but could feasibly pay dividends later.
Although I don't think fibre inside the home will be coming in the next ten years.
Gigabit ethernet is rare enough as it is ("home" gigabit routers/switches are only coming on the market in the last 6-12 months). 10G ethernet will be over copper AFAIK and will probably work in some way with good CAT6 cable, the same way the CAT5 standard was enhanced to allow for gigabit speeds (rather than CAT6).
10G should allow for throughput of around 800-900 Megabytes/second (I've only seen iSCSI based tests so I could be waaaayyy off)

Cuddlesworth

Tbh, mabye not in this country , but with fibre net connections coming into play elsewhere a internal fibre network would be handy and would stop the limitations of a gigibyte home network.

WizZard

Which are? (In relation to 10G ethernet)

Cuddlesworth

Show me some commercialy available 10G equipment that in terms of price/performance is cheaper then fibre equipment.

Edit, 2.5gig french fiber connections. In relation to 10g they would struggle but whos to say that by the time 10g becomes popular better speeds will have become available.

WizZard

True, but because 10G is built to take advantage of existing cable runs (CAT6 only) more equipment will be sold once it becomes widely available (and once the standard is ratified) leading to cheaper pricing. Fibre is still very expensive to lay down, especially internally, and that's why I see people waiting for 10G to become available rather than going with fibre in the next couple of years.

ressem

I'm not a radio engineer but,
Re SyxPak's recomendation, Is it really worth it for a house to be using ScTP (Screened twisted pair cabling)?

ScTP is wrapped in foil and is meant to be plugged into shielded components all the way through. Supposedly it's popular in Germany more for insurance reasons than technical. If not done properly then the entire foil becomes an antenna reputedly resulting in worse interference than normal UTP.

I'd suggest that unshielded cat6 solid core would be fine.
Solid as opposed to stranded, as being more resistant to moisture, but less able to cope with repeated flexing.

Usual guidelines are;
With cat 6, the patch panels, ports and patch cables ideally should be rated cat 6 also. The cables should not run alongside AC or flourescent lights (keep about 3 ft distant), should try to cross perpendicular if it has to.