What's the point of Cat6 if it only does 1gig like Cat5e?

[imagoon]

You seem to be really dedicated to getting it from the rip off joints known as brick and mortar stores. I can buy this stuff off the internet (to end user) for 1000' Cat5e $70, Cat6a $90. There has to be a company like Monoprice in Canada. Canada isn't a third world country or anything.

Monoprice's shipping to Canada $50. Odds are most of that is your lovely VAT system.

 

[Fardringle]

Buy your cable from Monoprice. Do not buy it from a local retailer or you will pay 3-5X as much (or more) as you should. I recently bought a 1000 foot spool of solid, riser-rated CAT6a from Monoprice. Even after adding shipping cost it was still less than what a local retailer wanted to charge me for 300 feet of the stuff. (I just checked and shipping the 1000 foot spool to Canada would cost only a few dollars more than the retail store price for 300 feet.) I only needed the 300 feet, but I now have an extra 700 feet of cable available in case I need it in the future and I didn't spend anything extra to get it.

 

[Eug]

No Monoprice in Canada. However, I do often order from Monoprice. That's where I got all my CAT6 jacks and patch cables from. However, Monoprice didn't sell bulk CAT6a solid, just CAT6. This was several months ago though. Do they sell CAT6a solid now? I just looked and I still can't find it there, just CAT6. Lots of 6a stranded patch cables though.

So, I bought 500' of CAT6 for my basement reno from a local eBayer. CAT6a would have cost a lot more at the time both for the cable, and for the shipping.

P.S. What I got is actually "CAT6e" which is basically just a marketing term for CAT6 that they claim exceeds CAT6 specs, but which doesn't meet CAT6a's specs.

P.P.S. I was surprised to find that Mellanox actually specs CAT5e for 10 GigE. Interesting. Not that I'm counting on CAT5e supporting 10 GigE, since it's not supported by anyone else. However, CAT6 should (hopefully) work for 10 GigE in such a home setup (once the jacks are re-terminated, etc.), since all the runs are under 30 m anyway.

The good news for me is the most important runs (not in the basement) are mostly surface conduit runs. 5e will suffice there until I have to replace the conduits for 6a or whatever, 15 years in the future.

 

[Eug]

So I've searched at Monoprice for "CAT6a", "CAT 6a", "CAT6", "CAT 6", "riser" and "bulk Ethernet", and I still cannot find any CAT6a bulk solid cable anywhere on their site. Their boxes for CAT6 are just generic Monoprice branded "CATegory 6" cable, with "GIGABIT ETHERNET" stamped on the side.

Yeah, it's 500 MHz rated, but that doesn't make it 6a. My "6e" is also 500 MHz rated, but that's not 6a either.

Are you sure you guys were looking at 6a at Monoprice? Maybe you're just talking about 6 advertised at 500 MHz? Cuz if so, it's not the same thing.

 

[Fallen Kell]

I havn't seen monoprice carry bulk Cat6a either. Cheapest I have seen the good stuff go for is about $340 for 1000' spool (Cat6a 23AWG solid shielded plenum rated).

 

[Eug]

Monoprice's shipping to Canada $50. Odds are most of that is your lovely VAT system.

Nah. That's just the shipping. Taxes are extra. OTOH, Monoprice AFAIK now doesn't uses any shipping method that can incur brokerage charges. Both UPS WW Expedited and WW Express Saver include brokerage. USPS shipping may incur a small handling fee, but not always. Nothing like the exorbitant brokerage fees you get with stuff like UPS Standard ground shipping.

I havn't seen monoprice carry bulk Cat6a either. Cheapest I have seen the good stuff go for is about $340 for 1000' spool (Cat6a 23AWG solid shielded plenum rated).

Do you only get shielded? Anyways, I suspect you're right. It seems a lot of people may be confusing up-spec'd CAT6 for CAT6a.

BTW, I came across this video that seems good for n00bs like me (albeit overly simplistic).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Op6RluvPdic

The one gem I got from that one when I was shopping is that if it comes in a pull box, then it's probably not CAT6a.

 

[wadewood]

I just looked and Monoprice does not sell Cat6a cable. You would only need Cat6a cable if you are going to install 10Gb ethernet. I don't know of any motherboards that have 10Gb NICs and stand alone 10gb RJ45 NIC cards are over $500.

To the original posters question - What's the point of Cat6? I worked in sales for a major cable manufacturer and can answer this. Cat6 cables specs were designated before the 1Gb Ethernet standard was finalized. The cable manufacturer had developed techniques to make cable with way better specs than Cat5. They needed a way to distinguish this cable and sell at a premium. They hoped that Gigabit Ethernet would require Cat6 cable - which did not turn out to be the case.

The other thing to consider is at the time not everything was ethernet/ip based. Other standards could take advantage of Cat6 double the bandwidth vs. Cat5 (example some non ip video/security systems used this extra bandwidth). Another factor is headroom. Yes, a properly installed Cat5e system works great with Gigabit Ethernet. In the real world, cable gets kinked, stretched and other bad things happen to it during installation. The extra bandwidth of Cat 6 overcomes these installation issues. BICSI (Building Industry Consulting Service International) recommends Cat6 cables for new installations.

 

[Lorne]

As Wadewood mentions and,,,,,
Cat5 will support higher then 1Gbt, Seen it also used on 10Gbt servers as short jumper pach cables.
As with both Cat5 and Cat6 there both subject to length and error due to alien/Cross talk.

One of the main reasons for the 1Gbt limit is because that was the limit for PCI which is whats most commonly used and for onboard NIC, Not because Cat5 cannot handle it.
Ive wondered but not looked into why newer PCIe NIC's have not been showing up that support 2-4 Gbt and for standard consumer users (Which Cat5 can be used).

Anyone have a 5Gps system they can do some throttle testing and throughput and see what the error rate is on the Cat5's for 50-100 ft.

 

[imagoon]

As Wadewood mentions and,,,,,
Cat5 will support higher then 1Gbt, Seen it also used on 10Gbt servers as short jumper pach cables.
As with both Cat5 and Cat6 there both subject to length and error due to alien/Cross talk.

One of the main reasons for the 1Gbt limit is because that was the limit for PCI which is whats most commonly used and for onboard NIC, Not because Cat5 cannot handle it.
Ive wondered but not looked into why newer PCIe NIC's have not been showing up that support 2-4 Gbt and for standard consumer users (Which Cat5 can be used).

Anyone have a 5Gps system they can do some throttle testing and throughput and see what the error rate is on the Cat5's for 50-100 ft.

The Ethernet standard is pretty 'locked down.' The committee that decides on the standards needs to have vendor support also. It is unlikely the vendors would want to bother supporting "2gig" when a) in 95% of home users, 100mbps is sufficient (many users use wireless b/g for the entire home etc.)

To me, "2gig" or whatever it was would be like the Draft-N "turbo" modes that were out and only worked well with the same vendors gear etc.

 

[spidey07]

As Wadewood mentions and,,,,,
Cat5 will support higher then 1Gbt, Seen it also used on 10Gbt servers as short jumper pach cables.
As with both Cat5 and Cat6 there both subject to length and error due to alien/Cross talk.

One of the main reasons for the 1Gbt limit is because that was the limit for PCI which is whats most commonly used and for onboard NIC, Not because Cat5 cannot handle it.
Ive wondered but not looked into why newer PCIe NIC's have not been showing up that support 2-4 Gbt and for standard consumer users (Which Cat5 can be used).

Anyone have a 5Gps system they can do some throttle testing and throughput and see what the error rate is on the Cat5's for 50-100 ft.

Because Ethernet doesn't come in 2, 4, 5, 8 Gbs flavors. And no technology is going to overtake ethernet in the LAN. 100 Megabit token ring was a real winner!

The reason for 1 Gigabit speed had nothing to do with PCI or bus. Ethernet has always jumped in 10s because of the way the encoding is done on the physical layer. The only deviation we're seeing from that is the move to 40 Gigabit ethernet from 10 instead of 100 Gig because the technology just isn't there yet and multimode fiber can't handle 100 gig because of the lack of bandwidth on the fiber.

 

[imagoon]

Because Ethernet doesn't come in 2, 4, 5, 8 Gbs flavors. And no technology is going to overtake ethernet in the LAN. 100 Megabit token ring was a real winner!

The reason for 1 Gigabit speed had nothing to do with PCI or bus. Ethernet has always jumped in 10s because of the way the encoding is done on the physical layer. The only deviation we're seeing from that is the move to 40 Gigabit ethernet from 10 instead of 100 Gig because the technology just isn't there yet and multimode fiber can't handle 100 gig because of the lack of bandwidth on the fiber.

In theory you could simply double the 125mhz frequency of the GigE with the same encoding mathematically would give you 2gig.

---

There is more to it though. 1000base-T is still collision based, and has back off timers and expected transmit rates are built in to the the protocol etc.

10 Gig has a base rate of 500mhz and is no longer collision based. 10gig does not allow for 'hubs' etc. They changed the encoding method again in order to put 10x the 'data' on the only 4x the base frequency.

Main thing is 'why bother' with small steps when the existing is working well in most cases. Hence they put the effort in to 10gig. "2gig" can be accomplished with etherchannel and the like so it was low on their list.

 

[imagoon]

I havn't seen monoprice carry bulk Cat6a either. Cheapest I have seen the good stuff go for is about $340 for 1000' spool (Cat6a 23AWG solid shielded plenum rated).

I looked at monoprice again and agree, I was looking at the wrong stuff.

 

[Lorne]

Spidey, It has alot to do with the PCI bus, Its the same reason ATA stopped at 133.
The only way to get beyond the 133MB bandwidth was the use of PCI-X Which was also the 10Gbps limit (1250MB), Now with the implimation of PCIe the next steps can be taken.


Imagoon, Correct but would only work on PCI-X or PCIe NIC

 

[imagoon]

Spidey, It has alot to do with the PCI bus, Its the same reason ATA stopped at 133.
The only way to get beyond the 133MB bandwidth was the use of PCI-X Which was also the 10Gbps limit (1250MB), Now with the implimation of PCIe the next steps can be taken.


Imagoon, Correct but would only work on PCI-X or PCIe NIC

Actually it would work fine on PCI, just that the PCI bus would be the choke point. If the standards committee thought it was important, they would have released it for interswitch transport just like they did for 10Gig prior to the designing and releasing interface cards.

 

[spidey07]

Spidey, It has alot to do with the PCI bus, Its the same reason ATA stopped at 133.
The only way to get beyond the 133MB bandwidth was the use of PCI-X Which was also the 10Gbps limit (1250MB), Now with the implimation of PCIe the next steps can be taken.


Imagoon, Correct but would only work on PCI-X or PCIe NIC

There were totally unrelated. Most of the first 1 gig cards weren't even used on PCI bus but other midrange computing platforms or interswitch link like imagoon said. Same is true today with 10 gig cards.

 

[Lorne]

Imagoon, True, But throughput would only improve by about 10% at best for PCI base.
Would have been nice if they did as it would have open another server market or general NIC market altogether.

Spidey, Its not hard writen that way but if you check how the timing of ESA made the standards and how technology creeps along you will see they do.


No need to buy plenum wrap CAT unless for fire insurance reasons, It does not improve X-talk protection in any way.

 

[Fayd]

so why not release Cat6 when it's ready to do 10gig?
and continue using Cat5e till then?

because people who install these cables into homes/businesses want to do so with the future in mind.

edit: wow, just realized this thread was necro-bumped.

 

[imagoon]

Imagoon, True, But throughput would only improve by about 10% at best for PCI base.
Would have been nice if they did as it would have open another server market or general NIC market altogether.

Spidey, Its not hard writen that way but if you check how the timing of ESA made the standards and how technology creeps along you will see they do.


No need to buy plenum wrap CAT unless for fire insurance reasons, It does not improve X-talk protection in any way.

I think the point that is being missed here is that networking is generally designed for the Enterprise and trickles down to the home users. In the Enterprise I just bond 2 1gig channels and I now have a 2gig connection. By the time Enterprises needed 2gig... they had dualport Ethernet cards, 64 bit PCI-x slots etc.

Very few home users need 2gig. Few even test 1 gig. Those that do go and buy Enterprise gear. Why would they waste time developing 2 or 4 gig. Esp since the new design does 10 gig at the same clock rate as the hypothetical 2gig connection.

 

[Lorne]

Imagoon, True again.

Fayd, Agree, And zombie threds are prefered, Less threds show up when search.

(tangent alert) Also seeing other users trying to work out a HDMI and USB3 network.

And my bad as it was not ESA but IEEE that makes the standards.

 

[Cable God]

I'm using Cat5E patch cables for up to 20-30 meters for 10GBase-T back to my Arista 71xx and get 10G just fine. I do plan to move to CAT6a in the future though.

 

[Fallen Kell]

Please don't tell me you have a $15k switch in your home Cable God...

 

[imagoon]

Please don't tell me you have a $15k switch in your home Cable God...

He could be doing nic to nic etc. You can get Intel 10Gig nic's for ~$400. You can also pick up 10GB HP procurves for ~$2300

Point is, 10GB is falling like a rock. Odds are in 1-3 years it will be 'common.'

 

[wirednuts]

the only way to futureproof the data lines in your home is to run it all in conduit.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Very few home users need 2gig. Few even test 1 gig. Those that do go and buy Enterprise gear. Why would they waste time developing 2 or 4 gig. Esp since the new design does 10 gig at the same clock rate as the hypothetical 2gig connection.

Remember the quad-speed USB 1.1 controllers? There was no standard, but some vendors quadrupled the 12Mbit/sec rate, yielding controllers that were capable of 48Mbit/sec. It never caught on, and it quickly died out. (Haven't heard much about wireless USB either, lately.)

 

[Eug]

He could be doing nic to nic etc. You can get Intel 10Gig nic's for ~$400. You can also pick up 10GB HP procurves for ~$2300

Point is, 10GB is falling like a rock. Odds are in 1-3 years it will be 'common.'

I doubt it. Maybe after 5 years, but not in 1-3 years.

Why? Because there isn't really much need for it. Even HD video streaming is easily handled by 100 Base-T, and Gigabit is fine for most other consumers, and will continue to be so for the next three years.

In fact, I suspect in 1-3 years, CAT5e will still be the standard of choice sold at Home Depot, with some people selling CAT6, but few selling CAT6a in high volume to general contractors.

To put it another way... Macs often get faster network technology before everyone else. 5 years later or whatever, everyone else gets it on low end computers.

Higher end Macs have had Gigabit for a very long time now. However, only very recently has Gigabit become common on lower end PCs. Macs have had Gigabit since 2000. This was when the lowly G4 500 MHz was king.

OTOH, not a single Mac supports 10 GigE out-of-the-box. Moreover, I have never seen a single Mac user, even the hardcore video types who buy maxed out Mac Pros, ask for advice on forums like this for 10 GigE. The demand just isn't there.