shielded cat5 questions

[mcveigh]

I posted a link here before about a firends company with massive RF interference.
I I rewire their small office with shielded cat5 would that be enoough to protect the data going through it? Or should I get shielded conduit also?

Are there shielded printer cables, I know most have some shielding but I'm looking for some heavy duty?

Thanks!

 

[ScottMac]

Unless the screened/shileded cable is properly gorunded/terminated, you'll introduce some seriously ugly errors into your network. Instead of rejecting the noise, you'll be attracting it and sending into the cabling.

Properly installed UTP (like, regular Cat5/5e/6), in confunction with a decent transceiver (just about anything recent) should be able to handle most interference, especially if not a noise spike.

A decent grade of conduit, installed according to the electrical code(s) should be more than enough to eliminate any RF/EMI noise problems. In this case, you "fer sher" don't want to use plastic conduit.

FWIW

Scott

 

[L3Guy]

IMHO, any interference that cat 5 can't handle, probably requires fiber.
I realize the cost penalty is high, but it is immune to EMI.
Mater of fact, the NIC may be only available at 10 Mb for fiber.

If I had to try things, I would definitely use Cat 5E rather than cat 5 for this. My take is that it is more consistent to pass the higher NEXT spec. (NEXT = Near end Cross talk)

The only other thing I would consider is 10 Base 5. Thick Ethernet has much higher shielding than anything else, with 2 foil and 2 braid shields. if its properly installed, (grounded on one end) its much more immune than other cabling to anything short of a Nuke.
It?s slow by today?s standards, but that?s what you get for working in a VanDeGraph generator.



Good luck.

Doug