Mismatching jacks

[tchism465]

I was wondering I have a situation with cat 6 cable and a Siemon cat 5e patch panel. This system is using all siemon jacks (xm sm t568b). I assuming the cat 6 cable is for future change over. My question does it matter if you mismatch the jacks? I can't find siemon jacks locally and want to use levition jacks with this siemon hd 5 patch panel, will this work?
Thanks!

 

[mfenn]

You can use any brand of jacks as long as they will physically fit into the panel. Mixing Cat 6 and Cat 5e is also fine, but keep in mind that including a Cat 5e component into a path brings that whole path down to Cat 5e. This may or may not matter depending upon your run lengths.

 

[tchism465]

Thank you for your response. This type patch panel has a 110 punch down on backside no need for jacks. So I will use whatever cat 6 jacks i can find locally. They are trying to keep workstations/cables cat 6 until they change all things over to the future cat 6 system.
Thanks again!

 

[mfenn]

Ah OK. In that case, since the panel is Cat 5e, then everything going through that panel is technically Cat 5e.

That being said, the panel doesn't make much of a difference in the real world except for certification purposes. The quality of the punch-down job will make a bigger difference.