What coax & ethernet cables to buy for SPEED?

[WildHorse]

[FONT=&quot]I’m supplying a cable modem to a remote location. I personally have not, and will not, physically be there to see it. Someone else will set this up there for me. I’ve never had a cable modem, and I know nothing about what cables are best. I don’t understand whether cable parameters vary, resulting in faster speeds. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]The modem in transit right now to that location is:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Motorola SB6120 SURFboard DOCSIS 3.0 eXtreme Broadband Cable Modem[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Questions:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]a) [FONT=&quot]What qty 1ea coaxial cable do I want to buy for a 12 to 15 foot distance from the Comcast wall jack to the cable modem, for fastest speed?[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]b) [FONT=&quot]What qty 1ea Ethernet cable do I want to buy for a 12 to 15 foot distance from the cable modem to the computer, for fastest speed? The Ethernet cable will connect directly to a computer, no router (for now).[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Without endorsing any particular seller, would it be convenient to cite Newegg links showing the fastest cables?[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Thank you.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]P.S. This is way off topic, yet is an amazing diversion if you have 4 minutes to enjoy something you don't see every day.
[/FONT]

 

[drebo]

RG6 for coax and Cat6 for the Ethernet cable...although at those distances, Cat5E would be just as good.

Why is this even a question? At those distances, you could string a few individual wires together and you'd get more bandwidth than your ISP connection will give you.

Hint: your cables are not your limiting factor. The extra 1ms you get from placing a simple NAT router on your connection is nothing compared to the jitter you'll see just browsing the Internet. Seriously, it doesn't fucking matter. Cheapest cables you can get on Newegg or Monoprice will be more than sufficient.

 

[WildHorse]

drebo

Thank you for your guidance.

I didn't understand whether some nuance about the cables affected speed, clearly "No." Thanks.

 

[Emulex]

RG6 - monoprice = junk quality good for 6-10ft max.
ethernet? cat5e/6 for gigabit and cat6a for 10gigabit (6a != 6) - 10gigabit adapters are out there but require too much power (1GB ram per port, plus 15-35 watts per port) and switches are nasty expensive for cat6. but in 3-5 years it will be the norm. $20 10gb 5-port switches, They'll put 1gb of ram on the card itself, etc.

Where it matters RG6 if your cable is unstable and every 3db of signal counts. if you split (use taps) - crappy RG6 = junk. Brands like Blonder-Tongue = great.

Just remember it when your comcast starts dropping packets. it will someday.

 

[Texashiker]

RG-6, at least dual shielding.

There is quad shielded RG-6, but that is going to be overkill for 8 - 10 feet.

The difference between dual and quad shielded, is the layers of aluminum foil and wrappings around the core that stop outside interference from getting into the line.

Do not buy those junk push on cable pieces that are supposed to go between your tv and dvd player. They have very little shielding and let lots of noise into the line.

 

[bobdole369]

Properly crimped RG-6 is more than adequate. RG-59 works just as well, but is less commonly found. Any 75 ohm unbalanced transmission line tested up to 100mhz with >20db SNR is sufficient. Essentially 2 separate bare wires would work well enough to get sync.

As for the network side - I once used 35 feet of 4 untwisted unshielded wires in a cable (essentially romex with 6 conductors) to make a 10mbit ethernet connection work that had very very low throughput on a yacht (it was a monitoring station). Extreme situation, nobody should EVER rely on something like that and once the seatrial was over we forced the contractor to open the walls and run a proper CAT5 cable.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Do not buy those junk push on cable pieces that are supposed to go between your tv and dvd player. They have very little shielding and let lots of noise into the line.

Hmm. When I got my FIOS installed, the installer screwed up a cable he had made, so I offered a premade RG6 cable I had lying around. It was kind of thin. I'll have to check which network segment it's on, whether it's connected to the cable TV or the internet router. I wonder if that is one of the reasons why my internet radio stations drop stream bandwidth every once in a while.

 

[Eug]

For a roughly 70 foot run, these are the signal strength numbers as measured by my PVR:

Existing RG59 in the house (don't remember brand / model): Channel 534 - 759 MHz: -12 dB
Brand new contractor grade Coleman Cable 92001 RG6: Channel 534 - 759 MHz: -8 to -9 dB
Brand new high $$$ Belden 1694A: Channel 534 - 759 MHz: -8 dB

Note the absolute value is meaningless here, but the difference in values is important. Over 70 feet, the signal drop at a moderately high frequency was somewhere in the range of 0.5ish dB using uber expensive Belden RG6 vs contractor grade RG6. However, the signal drop using RG59 was 3-4 dB. The results were the same after I reterminated the RG59. Now it's possible the RG59 had some other issues, but I tried another run and RG59 was still significantly lower signal strength.

I suspect the signal attenuation would have been more at higher frequencies, but I didn't test that.

Actually, the absolute value is important here. At below -10, the PVR's service menu displays the values in red, because that's when it potentially starts getting hiccups in terms of the picture stability.

EDIT:

I just checked Coleman Cable's catalogue. Here are their attenuation numbers for their cables, at 1000 MHz, and 100 ft:

RG59: 9.3-9.9 dB depending on product
RG6: 6.5-8.5 depending on product

For Belden 1694a they quote 5.9 dB at 1000 MHz and 100 ft.

So I guess my numbers make some sense. Moral of the story, don't get RG59, but get decent quality name brand RG6. The highest end RG6 might be a waste of money, especially considering it costs several times as much as decent RG6.

 

[Texashiker]

Hmm. When I got my FIOS installed, the installer screwed up a cable he had made, so I offered a premade RG6 cable I had lying around. It was kind of thin. <snip> I wonder if that is one of the reasons why my internet radio stations drop stream bandwidth every once in a while.

If too much background noise gets into the cable line, the modem can not tell the difference between the internet signal, and a local radio station that is bleeding into the line. Its called the signal to noise ratio.

The aluminum foil in the cable helps absorb the outside radio signals, and helps prevent interference from getting into the line.