2

Due to old cable being dried, burned and broken by the sun outside and experiencing constant internet interruptions hourly, I've decided to change out all the Cables.

Now I'm preparing to buy patch cables all along from ISP to my router and then to devices. I've decided to do the "buy cable" part alone since my ISP use some cheap cable and the story repeats itself.

The CAT-5E cable I've decided to use is CAT-5E F/UTP with metal carrying rope. I think is ideal for me because my cable goes from 1st floor up the entire flat, on to the roof, then back down to 5th floor. And needs to have UV protection.

I have an option to switch to a UC400 CAT-6 U/FTP more expensive without carrying rope.

In addition I'll get some ROLINE 21.99.1365 S/FTP CAT-6 (PiMF) Cables. While the first cable will go from ISP's switch to a LAN surge protector, the patch cables will go from the surge protector to the router and then to other devices (PC).

PS. I may change the patch cables being CAT-5E if the main cable 5E is overall better than CAT-6 in the current case.

Will there be any problem with mixing CAT-5E and CAT-6 cables even when it's indirect (one goes in surge protector, another goes out)?

I know that CAT-6 is for very high speeds such as 1-10Gbits, but could it cause performance degradation?

I've read some contradicting things.. "buy CAT-6 for future-proof" or "buy CAT-6 when you need it because otherwise it may perform slower than CAT-5E". That's what bothers me.

It's neither very cheap nor very expensive the difference between CAT-5E vs CAT-6, but I don't want to waste money on something that may not perform well or won't work at all.

Thanks to whoever decides to give an opinion! :)

Sathyajith Bhat
  • 62,374
Dreamfield
  • 161

2 Answers2

3

This is dependent on what you actually plan on upgrading to in the future.

If the network equipment is 1Gbps, then little difference will be seen whether its cat-5e, cat-6 or even cat-8. unless you plan on 10Gbps in the near future, foiled or shielded pair will make no difference, it can actually make the speeds worse if it isn't grounded/bonded properly according to clause 4.6 of ANSI/TIA-568-B.1 and clause 11.3 of ISO/IEC 11801:2002

There is no debate that CAT-6 performs better then CAT-5e. (or it wouldn't be able to support higher speeds.) If you are not planning on pushing 10Gbps, don't waste your money on foiled or shielded. If you do plan on pushing 10Gbps, then CAT-6A s/ftp would be a good choice, but proper care needs to be taken to terminate and ground the cable.

Note: any of the cables rated as riser or plenum usually have an internal filament or "rope" to withstand the cables weight. If the cable will be exposed to sunlight you will also want a UV resistant type.

Tim_Stewart
  • 6,041
1

It's probably not the cable itself that can cause poor performance but how the UTP plugs are applied as it is discussed in these similar question couple of years ago: Crimping CAT6 cables results in lower bandwidth than expected, Why is my connection only 100Mbps?

bcs78
  • 904