Planning home network. ?cat6a vrs 6

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afe66

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#185314 18-Nov-2015 09:47

Moved from asdl2 to Vodafone gigabits fibre last week so now looking more seriously about cabling the house with Ethernet.
I'm lucky in that it's an old villa with wooden walls and complete access to under the house so running cable should be straight forward.

According to the telecommunications forum builders guidelines , cat 6a is what I should be installing but I wonder whether it's pushing the faster cabling because they are aiming at new build houses where cables will be inaccessible and need to run for years in the future. My house will easy to recable in 5-10 years if needed.

The ONT terminates in a cupboard in the middle of the house so all cable runs are less than 15m. Might run cable to the furtherist end of garage in case build man cave but that would be less than 30m.

I have no equipment with with ports faster than 1 gigabits currently.
Most bandwidth intensive use currently would be streaming blu rays from NAS.
4k streaming should work over cat6 shouldn't it ?

So is it reasonable to use cat 6 rather than 6a ?

Thanks.

A.

This is a achievable project for you average geekzone poster ?

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Vocus

#1430211 18-Nov-2015 09:51

Even cat5e will support Gigabit up to 100m, so go with whatever you can afford/want to spend IMO

Jase2985

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#1430215 18-Nov-2015 09:59

gigabit Ethernet supports transfer speeds up to 125MB/s thats megabytes should be more than capable of streaming 4k as sites like netflix etc all say anything greater than about 20mbps will handle it ao your GBE connection is 50x faster than that.

cat6a is rated at 10gigabits to 100m (90m+10m for jackpoints and patch leads) where as cat6 is only 30-50m depending on how much interference there is.

cat6a is about 2-3x the price of cat6.

If it were me i would just go cat6 as your runs are not that long and the likelyhood is you will still get 10gigabit ethernet over it in the future when devices catch up

the price difference between 5e and 6 is about $40 for a 305m roll, but you just have a be a little more careful when terminating cat6 than with cat5e

darylblake

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#1430503 18-Nov-2015 16:35

just buy cat6 or cat5e.

6a sounds like a waste of money for a home network.

chevrolux

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#1430537 18-Nov-2015 17:24

Everything with shielding gets really expensive.

Go Cat 6. It has the extra bandwidth capabilities over Cat5e (250MHz rather than 100MHz) so things like HDMI video extenders can run on it and it is just about the same price as Cat5e anyway.

afe66

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#1430544 18-Nov-2015 17:36

Thanks for feedback.

Sounds like cat 6 is the way to go.

Other than maintaining the twists as much as possible and keeping the amount of outer core / insulation removed to a minimal (and watching turn radius, crimpin/pullling on cable) are there any particular issues with this project ?

Would any main stream brand plugs, faceplates etc be good enough ? Any to avoid. ? Any particular favourites ?

A.

jonb

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#1430562 18-Nov-2015 18:08

Here is my shopping cart from researching myself last night. Will also get another quad port faceplate and some patch cables. Will probably buy the Cat6 keystone jacks from trademe in packs of 5. Dynamix Cat6 cable was only $10 extra.

I bought my networking tools from AliExpress, there are similar on trademe: http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Portable-Ethernet-Network-Cable-Tester-Tools-Kits-RJ45-Crimping-Crimper-Stripper-Punch-Down-RJ11-Cat5-Cat6/32347125448.html

chevrolux

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#1430567 18-Nov-2015 18:29

afe66: Thanks for feedback.

Sounds like cat 6 is the way to go.

Other than maintaining the twists as much as possible and keeping the amount of outer core / insulation removed to a minimal (and watching turn radius, crimpin/pullling on cable) are there any particular issues with this project ?

Would any main stream brand plugs, faceplates etc be good enough ? Any to avoid. ? Any particular favourites ?

A.

Dynamix gear is really good. Nice and cheap and works just as well as any other stuff around.

Main thing is just maintaining the twist as much as possible.

Edit: I would still go PDL faceplates though as they just look so so much better than the chinese garbage. A lot more expensive but infinitely better.

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afe66

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#1430610 18-Nov-2015 19:53

Ive got a crimper with inserts for p4, p6, p8, p10 plugs from when I have to make some data cables for my weather station.

There isnt anything different between cat5 and cat6 crimpers ?

Going to be lent a micromapper. http://www.flukenetworks.com/datacom-cabling/copper-testing/MicroMapper

Will hunt for one of the insertion tools KD-1 listed.

Will also look at the dynamix website (put one of their 28 inch network boxes into the cupboard on the weekend) and the PDL faceplate - other half a bit fussy about appearances.

Thanks again.

A.

InstallerUFB

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#1430623 18-Nov-2015 20:19

afe66: Ive got a crimper with inserts for p4, p6, p8, p10 plugs from when I have to make some data cables for my weather station.

There isnt anything different between cat5 and cat6 crimpers ?

A.

Yes the Crimp plugs for Cat5e and Cat6 are different - the Cat6 wire gauge is bigger so the proper associated Cat6 Crimp plugs are slitely bigger too - the mismatch of crimp plug types both stranded/nostranded, differing wire gauges etc is what causes many problems when it comes to makeing them yourself.

The same problem can happen also with the mismatch of Jacks

afe66

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#1430631 18-Nov-2015 20:28

Thanks InstallerUFB.

ok will look for a specific cat6 crimper.

A.

richms

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#1430635 18-Nov-2015 20:33

I have no idea why they are suggesting 6A at this time for houses.

5e will do gig which is all you need now. If I was wanting to go to 10 gig I would be considering fiber around the house since that is truely upgradable to whatever comes after that. I will probably see about fiber between buildings at home when I get around to digging the conduit for upgrading power to the garage and shed from the stupid 20A supply they both have at the moment. But in building, 6 will do 10 gig over copper for those distances, and from what I have heard the concerns about crosstalk between cables hasnt really amounted to much in the real world.

Richard rich.ms

froob

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#1430747 18-Nov-2015 22:37

You might consider just going with Cat5e, if it will be easy enough to replace cables in the future when 10Gbps gear becomes affordable. Cat5e is a bit cheaper, but the main advantages to me are that it is thinner and easier to work with. Cat6 has a plastic "spine" running up the centre that I've found to be a bit of a pain to work with.

I've never seen Cat6A, but it looks to be even larger again. I can't imagine that you could fit many runs though your framing without drilling multiple holes - keeping in mind that there are limits on the size of the holes you should be putting in the bottom plate for the cable entry.

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ubergeeknz

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Vocus

#1431020 19-Nov-2015 11:15

afe66: Ive got a crimper with inserts for p4, p6, p8, p10 plugs from when I have to make some data cables for my weather station.

There isnt anything different between cat5 and cat6 crimpers ?

Going to be lent a micromapper. http://www.flukenetworks.com/datacom-cabling/copper-testing/MicroMapper

Will hunt for one of the insertion tools KD-1 listed.

Will also look at the dynamix website (put one of their 28 inch network boxes into the cupboard on the weekend) and the PDL faceplate - other half a bit fussy about appearances.

Thanks again.

A.

IMO don't try to make cat6 patch leads / crimp plugs on to cat6. If you're running a cable outside use UV/outdoor rated cable for that run or the jacket will disintegrate.

afe66

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#1431861 20-Nov-2015 17:21

Thanks for feedback and suggestions.

A.

Zeon

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#1431886 20-Nov-2015 17:42

I wouldn't go Cat5E anymore. A new application like 4k over cat6 will come out in a few years and you will be pissed that you can't use it for saving $5 now.

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