What does it mean when it's "verified Cat5 cable"?

[Dark]

Hi, Title said it all. It's not a real cat5 cable?

 

[Mark R]

It means that it's been tested and found to meet cat5 standards.

 

[networkguru]

but dont get cat5 wire get cat5e or fibre optic if it is a choice.

Guru

 

[Dark]

Networkgure: Can u elabore that? I have to stick to 100baseTx specs

 

[nateholtrop]

what guru is trying to say is that cat5e is fast but Fiber is even faster....but it is also more expensive...your choice.

Nate

 

[Ladi]

cat5e is not a verified standard (nor is cat6, for that matter)...they are arbitrary designations given by manufacturers, generally to slightly higher quality cable, and may or may not have an influence on speed in your particular case.

~Ladi

 

[Dark]

Thx guys I can't go with fiber: price. It just seemed to me that there was a big difference between the manufactured cables out there and the one we made ourselves.

 

[R0b0tN1k]

Fibre is only as fast as the standard that it is used for. 100baseFX is no faster than 100baseTX...but it can run longer distances than copper, which is the reason for its use. You don't need fibre.

I don't recommend crimping your own cables. They're unreliable and can cause some problems. Using jacks and pre-made patch cables is a better idea.

 

[Dark]

Btw, Patch cables are meant to be run from the hub to the patch panel? I have another question, I remember reading that the minimum distance between a workstation and another device is 2m for the cat5...am i correct?

 

[tim0thy]

it could be 3 inches and the CAT5 cable will still work.

 

[WoundedWallet]

Since we're talking about it. What makes a Cat5 cable a Cat5 cable?

I mean I checked the gauge of a Cat5 and it was the same as the phone wire coming form the box.

So if it is not the gauge that determines the standard, then what is it? Copper quality?

 

[Mr-Mahem]

The Cat5 standard specify's (amongst other things) the number of twists per peter, guage of wires, capacitence across the wires and how much cross talk is allowed.

 

[Dark]

timothy: If u'r using half duplex and a hub for example, I know the cable must be long enough to let time for the device to detect the collision before "it's too late". I remember doing that for a Cisco business case by calculating the Propagation Delay Unit in the worst case scenario.


<< The most significant design rule for Ethernet is that the round-trip propagation delay in one collision domain must not exceed 512 bit times, which is a requirement for collision detection to work correctly. This rule means that the maximum round-trip delay for a 10-Mbps Ethernet network is 51.2 microseconds. The maximum round-trip delay for a 100-Mbps Ethernet network is only 5.12 microseconds because the bit time on a 100-Mbps Ethernet network is 0.01 microseconds as opposed to 0.1 microseconds on 10-Mbps Ethernet. >>


But I do for sure remember that I read that the minimum lenght of a cable between 2 workstation must be at least some value. Since the 2 workstation in the peer to peek workstations scenario no collision can occur, The ethernet design rule I mentionned before can't explain that fact. Maybe I got my infos wrong, but I could swear...