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Cat6 Solid for home installation

sactoking

sactoking

Diamond Member
Does anyone know of a place that sells Cat6 solid core unterminated cable in less than 1000' increments? I'm going to be pulling some cable in my house and I need ~200'. Even given that I'll have some waste I'd rather not spend $100 on 1000' if I only need 300' of cable.
 
You can buy it at the hardware store at "length to order" but odds are it will cost you a lot more per foot.
 
I got 500 feet of Cat6 off eBay.

It was "Cat6e", which is just a marketing term for "better than plain Cat6" but you shouldn't confuse it with Cat6a which is the actual and higher standard. Unfortunately, Cat6a is usually quite thick and very expensive.

BTW, check out what you're getting and make sure it suits your needs. On eBay I've seen:

Cat6 with centre spline
Cat6 without centre spline
Cat6 23 AWG
Cat6 24 AWG
Cat6 not otherwise specified
Cat6e versions of the above
Cat6a
 
sactoking said:
Does anyone know of a place that sells Cat6 solid core unterminated cable in less than 1000' increments? I'm going to be pulling some cable in my house and I need ~200'. Even given that I'll have some waste I'd rather not spend $100 on 1000' if I only need 300' of cable.
Click to expand...

Try Monoprice http://www.monoprice.com/home/index.asp

I needed a 50FT run and bought a terminated cable and cut and key-stoned the ends...sweet.
They also sell in 100ft increments; and anything else you may need.
r/ Brutus
 
Just out of curiosity, why are you running CAT 6 cord throughout your house - do you have a lot of equipment that is putting out huge amounts of EM/RF Interference that necessitate a shielded cable?

A CAT 5e should be able to carry a 1Gb connection without a repeater for at most 100 meters.

-Kevin
 
Gamingphreek said:
Just out of curiosity, why are you running CAT 6 cord throughout your house - do you have a lot of equipment that is putting out huge amounts of EM/RF Interference that necessitate a shielded cable?

A CAT 5e should be able to carry a 1Gb connection without a repeater for at most 100 meters.

-Kevin
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Cat 6 is only shielded if you buy shielded cabling... same with Cat 5e,5 etc...

Just because it's cat 6 does not make it shielded by default.
 
Crusty said:
Cat 6 is only shielded if you buy shielded cabling... same with Cat 5e,5 etc...

Just because it's cat 6 does not make it shielded by default.
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Even remaining as an UTP, CAT 6 has superior insulation. I guess, what I am wondering is simply whether or not the OP realizes that 5e will do just fine for cheaper in most home use scenarios.

-Kevin
 
Gamingphreek said:
Even remaining as an UTP, CAT 6 has superior insulation. I guess, what I am wondering is simply whether or not the OP realizes that 5e will do just fine for cheaper in most home use scenarios.

-Kevin
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It's not the insulation that gives the cable the rating, it's the twisting that gives the cables different performance.

Cat 5e can't run 10gbps, aside from cost and ease of installation there's really no reason to not use Cat 6, but I do agree that Cat 5e works fine for most home environments, just not for the reasons you state.
 
I went with CAT6 just because of the bandwidth rating and only a 50FT run; also used UTP (specs below). My comment to sactoking was that Monoprice does carry the the solid core in UTP and STP...good prices too.

UTP 24AWG
4 Twisted Pairs with PE Divider
Stranded 568B
EIA/TIA TSB-40A ETL Verified
Contact Gold Plating 50u"
Molded Strain Relief
Category 6
550mhz
Rohs Compliant
UL listed
CSA Listed
CMG
 
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cat6 will run short haul 10gb in the future. no problems if you are keeping the distance 33 feet ~ between switches. which is about my run length.

so 5 years from now when $19 10gb cat6 switches exist at newegg - you will enjoy it.

cat5e not so much. maybe. maybe not. who wants to re-run cable?
 
Crusty said:
Cat 5e can't run 10gbps, aside from cost and ease of installation there's really no reason to not use Cat 6, but I do agree that Cat 5e works fine for most home environments, just not for the reasons you state.
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Interestingly, Mellanox specs Cat5e for short distance 10GigE.
 
Eug said:
Interestingly, Mellanox specs Cat5e for short distance 10GigE.
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I can get coat hangers to connect at 100Mbps also. The question really would be: "why would I want to run the chance when the better cable is about the same price"
 
imagoon said:
I can get coat hangers to connect at 100Mbps also. The question really would be: "why would I want to run the chance when the better cable is about the same price"
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They officially spec Cat5e at 10GigE for short runs. Last I checked, they don't spec coat hangers. 😉

I ran Cat6, but for 10GigE people probably should really be running Cat6a, esp. for longer runs.

BTW, I would not be surprised if top tier Cat5e performs better than the cheapest Cat6. If the option were say top tier Belden Cat5e vs. noname eBay Cat6, which would you choose?

In my case I installed two runs in parallel - one run of Belden Cat5e and one run of General Cable Cat6 (or as they call it, Cat6e).
 
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Eug said:
They officially spec Cat5e at 10GigE for short runs. Last I checked, they don't spec coat hangers. 😉
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Reason for the coat hanger joke is that this: Cat5e is a bit of a misnomer because: Official Cat5e is rated at 100Mhz which is not enough for 10Gig which I vaguely recall is 250Mhz signaling rate. I would google search but it seems I get a ton of propaganda sites. I would need to go find the actual spec. However there is a ton of "350mhz and 550 mhz" Cat5e cable out there that might handle it fine over a short distance. The twisting and splines are wrong however.
 
Here ya go.

http://searchnetworking.techtarget.it/whitepaper_library/Siemon_Demistificare_il_Cablaggio.pdf

I here ya, and that's why I installed Cat6, but the one line that stands out in that paper is that Cat6 isn't recommend for 10GigE.

Although, category 6/class E cabling was primarily targeted to support 100BASE-T and 1000BASE-T applications, the good news is that some of the installed base of category 6/class E cabling can support the 10GBASE-T application. The newly published TIA TSB-155 and ISO/IEC 24750 technical bulletins identify the additional performance headroom, as well as applicable field qualification test requirements and procedures, which must be satisfied by the installed base of category 6/class E cabling in order to support the 10GBASE-T application.

Category 6/class E cabling is not recommended for new installations targeted for support of the 10GBASE-T application. The reason for this is that, while field test devices for determining compliance to the new PSANEXT loss and PSAACRF (previously known as PSAELFEXT loss) parameters are just now being introduced to the market, the test methodology remains extremely time-consuming, overly onerous to implement, and may not be fully conclusive. Furthermore, in a majority of installations, alien crosstalk mitigation will be required. Often, the recognized mitigation methods cannot be easily implemented due to existing pathway fill restrictions and the potential need to replace components. In addition, there is no guidance on qualification procedures for large installations or future MAC work.

Since most of my runs are under 100 feet, I'm just hoping the Cat6-is-good-enough-for-37m-10GigE-runs-for-consumer-use mantra rings true. However, I just find it curious that companies like Mellanox (who have been at this for a long time), spec both Cat5e and Cat6 for short-length 10GigE. Furthermore, they spec both Cat5e and Cat6 to the same distance for 10GigE. Only with Cat6a does their spec'd distance for 10GigE increase.
 
cat6 can be 650mhz or 550. Heck i bet they mark it whatever you want cat6a/6/5e and sell it - where it counts is the connectors 😉

I've run gigabit over cat3 - it worked mostly - in a pinch -the switch took care of the errors no real packet loss . wasn't pushing more than 250mbps but it was cool. out of spec ? yeah.

ratings are overrated unless you know the supplier is consistent in quality. I doubt monoprice is consistently spot on.
 
Emulex said:
cat6 can be 650mhz or 550. Heck i bet they mark it whatever you want cat6a/6/5e and sell it - where it counts is the connectors 😉

I've run gigabit over cat3 - it worked mostly - in a pinch -the switch took care of the errors no real packet loss . wasn't pushing more than 250mbps but it was cool. out of spec ? yeah.

ratings are overrated unless you know the supplier is consistent in quality. I doubt monoprice is consistently spot on.
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Heh. Yeah, I ran Gigabit over 7 feet of Cat 3 just for fun. Worked fine and it benched at over 900 Mbps. 🙂

Then I tried it over a 6 foot flat "Cat5" factory-terminated cable I got off eBay. I couldn't get over 90-something Mbps. 😛
 
Crusty said:
It's not the insulation that gives the cable the rating, it's the twisting that gives the cables different performance.

Cat 5e can't run 10gbps, aside from cost and ease of installation there's really no reason to not use Cat 6, but I do agree that Cat 5e works fine for most home environments, just not for the reasons you state.
Click to expand...

i'm running gigabit on plain cat5. it caps out around 40 MB/s, but it's better than the 100mbit i was running >_<
 
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