is cat6a worth it for inwall cabling?

[Red Squirrel]

I'll be cabling a new house. Would it be worth the extra cost to use cat6a, or is there hardly any noticable difference for gigabit speeds? Let's assume the equipment on the other ends can support gigabit very well. I'd also be using it for the phone jacks (later on I could then turn to rj45 jack if I ever go voip in the house)

 

[JackMDS]

I do not know what Worth means.

But since it is in-wall, it would be silly in years to come to reinstall every thing CAT6 if it can be done now.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Actually my bad, i meant to say cat6a which is newer, otherwise if it's not really much difference I may just go with cat6e.

 

[Slug]

I would go with cheapest cat6 but I would put 2 drops in each room. You never know what you will need in 5 years.

 

[bobdole369]

There is no economical or otherwise - good reason to use plain CAT6 or CAT6E. The typical points that are worth it right now are:


CAT3 for POTS - most folks bite the bullet and run plain CAT5 or 5E. CAT5E is likely the most produced cable, and likely the cheapest.
CAT5e - 10/100/1gbit up to a certain run length (most are good up to the full 300 feet, some very ahem - asian - or ahem counterfeit cable marked CAT5e is not good for the full length)

CAT6a (aka CAT6 augmented) - note the difference between CAT6, 6e and 6a. Cat6a is good for 10gigabit. CAT6e is not, but it might work. CAT6 is good for nothing more than gigabit, and the insurance that gigabit will work on it t full length.

CAT7 in "cut the earth" type runs or runs alongside power or transmitters. Technically good for 10gigabit. Highly resistant to interference.

 

[Pheran]

Originally posted by: bobdole369
CAT6a (aka CAT6 augmented) - note the difference between CAT6, 6e and 6a. Cat6a is good for 10gigabit. CAT6e is not, but it might work. CAT6 is good for nothing more than gigabit, and the insurance that gigabit will work on it t full length.

Do you have any idea what you are talking about? There is no such thing as Cat6e. Cat6 cable will do gigabit to 100m and 10 gigabit (10GBaseT) to 55m. Cat6a will do 10 gigabit to the full 100m.

If I was wiring a home now I would use Cat6 because it has more headroom for error/noise when using gigabit and I doubt there would be that much of a price premium. There's no real reason to go all the way to Cat6a (unless the price is pretty much the same) for home use.

 

[bobdole369]

Sure there is. It's just not a ratified official standard. It's sold as such and confuses users:

http://www.lanshack.com/Cat-6E...D=rIsw5aRDcBJqBDBaAuR3

http://www.broadbandutopia.com/belden7851.html

I found 6e often before 6 augmented became a standard, often it was bonded CAT6 with a cheap spreader.
Thanks for the clarification Pheran, I don't do runs every day so I'm not up on the published specs. <eek>

 

[DisgruntledVirus]

Originally posted by: Slug
I would go with cheapest cat6 but I would put 2 drops in each room. You never know what you will need in 5 years.

This.

Originally posted by: Pheran
If I was wiring a home now I would use Cat6 because it has more headroom for error/noise when using gigabit and I doubt there would be that much of a price premium. There's no real reason to go all the way to Cat6a (unless the price is pretty much the same) for home use.

And this.

Personally I'd do minimum of 2 drops per room, but ideally would do 3 (with some rooms I know that will have more equipment 4+ drops). That's just me, and I don't know if I would ever get a landline or not. If I did go with landline phones though, it's easier to just use 5E/6 for all drops since it works for POTS and VOIP.

Secondly, Cat6 is where I would start. Gigabit is just starting to get major in the home with a lot of devices gigabit capable. At home I don't see 10 gigabit ethernet happening anytime in the near future (i.e. Cat 6a), but gigabit is here so IMO Cat 6 is worth it over 5E.

Unless Cat 6a was about the same price (only 5-10% more expensive), I'd stick with Cat 6 and spend the extra money for more drops per room.

 

[bruceb]

Since this is a new home, do what is called Structured Cabling with 2 Data Cables to each location, 1 or 2 CAT 3 voice cables, 1 or 2 TV RG-6 type coaxial, and if you want to really future proof it, run in some fiber optic. It is cheap and easy to do when all the walls are opened.
With all the cables, be very careful about sharp bends, put nail protection plates on the studs and no metal staples on the data or fiber cables.
Be sure to use a large enough wall box at the drops to allow room for the cables to bend easily.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Actually it's not new in that sense, but since I'm painting anyway, I have less fear of needing to plug holes in the walls.

I will be running multiple drops and think I will go ahead and stick to cat6a especially if the person helping me has some, and I can just pay him for the amount I use. For a 1000 feet reel it's about 500 bucks on tigerdirect, which is not too too bad considering I can make quite a lot of high quality patch cables with it afterward. May be better to buy those premade though.

I'm debating on how I want to do the phones, but think I will run them to my patch panel like regular Ethernet, then just make special cables that are RJ12 to RJ45, would that be a good idea? The jack end would be normal RJ12 jack though. Just need to remember which wires I use so I do the same for my custom cables. Eventually I want to go voip and have a single regular phone line that goes to the voip server. For now I'll stick to pots.

The main office will probably get like 8 drops, 6 Ethernet and 2 phone. I'll have one jack on the ground with 3 and another jack at desk level with 3 more. Will make it easy to setup multiple PCs like when I'm working on client machines and what not. Heck if ever I get an IP KVM or something I could branch through. Server room will be where patch panel is so I'll just plug in directly to the switch/equipment. Later on I want to setup a custom linux based SAN too but I will be broke for a while after all these renovations.

 

[DisgruntledVirus]

Originally posted by: RedSquirrel
Actually it's not new in that sense, but since I'm painting anyway, I have less fear of needing to plug holes in the walls.

I will be running multiple drops and think I will go ahead and stick to cat6a especially if the person helping me has some, and I can just pay him for the amount I use. For a 1000 feet reel it's about 500 bucks on tigerdirect, which is not too too bad considering I can make quite a lot of high quality patch cables with it afterward. May be better to buy those premade though.

I'm debating on how I want to do the phones, but think I will run them to my patch panel like regular Ethernet, then just make special cables that are RJ12 to RJ45, would that be a good idea? The jack end would be normal RJ12 jack though. Just need to remember which wires I use so I do the same for my custom cables. Eventually I want to go voip and have a single regular phone line that goes to the voip server. For now I'll stick to pots.

The main office will probably get like 8 drops, 6 Ethernet and 2 phone. I'll have one jack on the ground with 3 and another jack at desk level with 3 more. Will make it easy to setup multiple PCs like when I'm working on client machines and what not. Heck if ever I get an IP KVM or something I could branch through. Server room will be where patch panel is so I'll just plug in directly to the switch/equipment. Later on I want to setup a custom linux based SAN too but I will be broke for a while after all these renovations.

Cat 6 is sub $200 for a 1000 feet, and I don't see the benefit personally in a home environment. But, if you can afford it then have at it .

For patch cables, factory terminated>home terminated especially if making a lot of them. The odds of you not meeting spec on a home crimped cable are significant when compared to factory termination.

AFAIK you can just use cat 5e/6/6a cable just plugged into POTS. I'm not sure on this though, so don't assume you can just because I'm saying so.

I'd be running Cat 5e/6/6a to every drop, and do any kind of changing of cables at the patch panel. Now, to help differentiate the cables you can use colored electrical tape (fairly cheap and has many different colors) to signify different uses/rooms/etc. Another option, is buy a label maker and wrap the ends of each cable with the same label (at work we use a vinyl sticker, that has 4 lines of text, and about 3/4 of the label is clear so it wraps around the text to protect it).

 

[Red Squirrel]

Yeah think I'll buy a label maker and label everything right. Especially since at first there will just be a bunch of dangling wires, until I get around to building my server room. I'm really anal about having stuff properly labeled. At work it's HORRID how badly organized everything is, from the wiring closets, to the fact that we hardly even have any tools.