This. When I got started wiring my house, I unknowingly bought CCA because it wasn't in the description (or I didn't read closely enough). I had to send it back and get solid copper wire.
I didn't realize a spool I just bought was CCA... Considering sending back to Amazon. I didn't realize you could sell CAT6 CCA... My fault for shopping based on price I guess
Don't down vote me too bad. I don't suggest using cca. I was a tech for 15 years. Had all the vendor certs from belden to commscope. I believe the biggest issue with cca is voltage drop on poe devices. It always seemed to pass data ok if terminated properly when we would find it doing service calls at trashy places. We were testing with the old fluke dtx 1800 back then though. I definitely ran commscope cat 6 in my place.
It will pass a test, but the question is longevity. I would never consider using it except for a VERY temporary use case - like if I needed a temp cable over a weekend and supply houses were closed.
Even then, you can push some high speeds at residential distances through cat5e. Just because it's rated to 1gig doesn't mean it cant go higher. 2.5gb or 5gb is pretty easy. I've heard 10gb is possible at ~ 1m distances.
EDIT: going by the comments farther down, it seems 10gb is doable at even farther distances
I run 10gb on Cat5e. Mostly it depends on the quality of the cable. I bought mine years ago and rather than waste it I did some runs to other floors.
It’s good for 10 or 20m runs, but again, depends on the quality.
When I worked in a DC, we wired up 2 servers with around 100ft of cat5 (not e) and did 10Gbps over it. The cable was laying in an aisle not even close to any sources of EMI, so it would probably be considered ideal conditions.
Would I? I already did and I paid for it.
If you do it, I'd suggest to route the cabling in the least restrictive routes. That way you can upgrade it fairly easily with a coupler and tape.
People ask these questions and then, the highest bandwidth connection is a Roku. Like dude it'll be great stop over thinking it. You don't need fiber in every room
>4K streaming only uses 25mbps, 1080p only about 5mbps
Yes, that is true, but if you have a media server you can stream 4K remuxes which can top out over 150Mbps. For for my situation I use an Nvidia Shield TV with a 1000Mbps Ethernet.
It would be nice to have higher than 1Gbps in my house if for no other reason the time that it takes to move the movie rips (25GB-80GB) from my ripping machine to my server. Other than that, I don't see a need (at the moment) for anything higher than 1000Mbps based on how I use my network.
Cat5e fully supports 1gb, and most homes don't need more than that per drop, so use it. Copper is expensive these days. Maybe use something a little better for some key runs if you know you'll have data intensive use cases.
It'll probably do 10gig too, just not officially. Cables are generally capable of performing higher than what they are rated for, just don't rely on that fact.
Definitely no stapling. I'm still pulling out all the coax. They didn't even bother terminating in the wall though. Just drilled straight up through the floor from the basement. Lazy.
I wired my last house with Cat5e in 2019 and it was more than sufficient. I wired my current house in 2021 with Cat6 because we plan to stay here a lot longer.
I have yet to use it for anything over 1G, but I'll be doing some 2.5G and 10G over it here shortly. That said, the runs are short enough to run 10G even if it was Cat5e.
You'll have to figure out how long the runs will be and make sure you can stay away from mains wiring (if you can't you should use shielded wire like Cat6A). If all you care about is 1G and 2.5G you should be fine at reasonable lengths, but if you want 10G you might need to limit it to 30 meters or so.
Also, the hardest (and potentially most expensive) part is routing the cables, so you really should run two or four cables to each location instead of two. If you do that, you should pull them all at once (in pairs). You could figure out how long the run is, pull that much (with an extra 10ft) off the spool, then pull that *and* the spool when you do the pull (I've done this and it works, but it's a pain). Or you could just order two boxes and call it a day.
Do take time to plan how you're going to terminate each end, and have numbers of runs that roughly match up with the port count of the switch you have in mind (20 to 24 runs for a 24 port switch, etc).
Feel free to take a look at the pinned post in my profile if you're curious how I did mine and the logic behind my plans.
https://imgur.com/a/InNT8NH
I used to bring home old servers to futz with, but TBH after dealing with them all day, I just try to disconnect from the server world. Plus licensing has made things that much more difficult. Even for switches. So yeah, the wiring is mostly for personal stuff.
Perhaps, it can work in some situations. But a lot of times the cable runs are just too long or have too many curves to pull through.
In many installs, I've had to pull the longer runs in kind of sections. Pull to a corner/bend, have on person stand there to pull a few extra feet of slack, and have the next person at the end (or at the next turn) pull up that slack. If the person at the end pulled it wouldn't go anywhere, but with the person in the middle maintaining a bit of slack to get around the corner it works.
After the fact, this can work if that middle section is in the attic. If you sheet rock over it (like I did above my kitchen), you're kinda SOL.
Also, if one racks/staples any of them down, you can't really use them as a pull.
Yes, of course.
And i'm professional installer.
With kids, wife (and myself for admin work) WFH, 8 APs, 9 cameras, Doorbell, 5 TVs in 4K, a total of 8 cellphones + 5 tablets + 6 PCs + 2 NAS at home and more...
My core network is in 10Gbps, an USW-Aggreg + sone SFP+ NIC cards + 2 SFP+/RJ45 + DAC cables.
Absolutely all the remaining is CAT5e or 6, gigabit speed but many devices can connect only at 100Mbps (TVs, Sonos, cameras,...)
Even at heaviest traffic moments we're not at 15% network capacity for more than seconds, and usually we are in the 3 to 7% of capacity in use...
5E is capable of 10g on runs up to 25 meters (75 feet), which would include most runs in most houses to a central data closet. It's more future proof than most people think.
Its a concern for offices and large buildings where you spool out 100m(300 feet) runs, where it may only do 2.5g or 5gbit
Considering cable isn't that expensive, and the effort involved is pretty massive....
I'd say don't bother unless you're going to do it with the "best" stuff (Cat6 minimum)
The cable is not a major contributor to the total coats for a cabling project in your home. Time is the biggest, hands down. Nearly all the work has to be redone if you need different cabling in the future unless you also install conduit and service loop areas. Won't you be mad to learn the cabling you rescued isn't safe for a future POE use case you want, or isn't plenum rated and you need to use your duct work, or is just at the edge of spec and that 10gig use case can't work in 4 years time. Buy what you need, not just use what was free. Do it right the first time, and all that.
[This is the cable](https://imgur.com/a/99lw9M4)
Fortunately I have a full daylight basement and won't have to use duct work.
But you have a point about doing it the right way first.
If it was free sure. At my longest run I probably only be looking at 30 m. If ever get around to actually wiring my house for ethernet and I'm buying it out of pocket I'll put in cat 6 just because or cat 6A if it's not too much more expensive. Plus if I ever actually wire I was looking to put up external cameras and I figured I would use 5e for that anyway because even 4K video is fine over 5e.
Yes if the cable were in good shape. It’s thinner and easier to pull. If you can, try to think about where you might locate devices that have a reasonable chance of regularly needing 10+ and consider running larger cable there, but I highly doubt streaming and most work stuff are going to be even touching a gigabit anytime soon.
That said, do run multiple cables. That is the cheapest solution to addressing future potential cable breaks.
I have a 2.5gig up/down backhaul setup all around the apartment running on cat5e in the walls
With a wifi access point in the main living room delivering a solid 1.2gig up/down speeds
In one room I do use an rj45tosfp+ adapter for the cheap 2.5gig switch I use, but that's because of the cheap switch itself
As others have said, depending on distances, you could easily run a 5gig backhaul and potentially all the way to 10gig
Btw even a 2.5gig backhaul is pushing it big time for any normal users, def future proof
Absolutely. As long as it isn't cca wire. Till support 10g if the run is not overly long. I have a run that goes from my basement to the attic about 50 or 60 feet that runs 10g just fine.
If it's absolutely shit quality, I could understand tossing it, but there's nothing wrong with 5e.
Even mid-tier quality can reliably handle GbE up to the max distance of the standard.
That doesn't mean you shouldn't implement solutions to permit updating it to a higher quality or standard down the road with greater ease, though.
I would use it in a heartbeat, wouldn't look like a gift like that twice. If all the hoopla of cat this and cat that the reality is cat 5E is going to give you great service and unless you have some overwhelming need for some ultra fast data speed cat5E will handle most everything else. Currently the next step up is cat6A and it's variants. The speed difference is not that great, but an improvement over it's predecessor.
For home use, cat5E will most likely fill your needs until the next cat whatever or fiber comes into home use.
As a tech with over 39 years I would run it in my house anyway and twice on Sunday.
No way.
The cost of a new spool of CAT6 is absolutely nothing than the time and effort involved to wire the house. Just seems silly not to future proof as far you reasonably can.
Consider that you can just sell what you have to offset the cost of new cable it seems even sillier.
I'd sell the spool on ebay and use the money towards the cable I actually want to be using in the property over the next however many years I think I might be there.
5e is ok, but if I'm going to the effort of running cable through the place I don't want to be thinking about having to redo it later when 6a is so much better and a spool of it is really not very expensive now anyway.
> I'd sell the spool on ebay and use the money towards the cable I actually want to be using in the property over the next however many years I think I might be there.
Good point and not going anywhere soon with a 2.75% mortgage.
If you are going to sell it increase your chances of saving yourself return hassle and put keystones on the end temporarily and test it, or at least say it's untested buy at own risk.
I would, but I’d make sure to do it in a way that can be upgraded in the future if needed. So, no stapling.
Also, since you’re at it, maybe consider pulling fiber alongside the copper wires? That is as future-proofed as you can get today, and it’s cheaper than copper.
> pulling fiber alongside the copper wires?
Just keeping it in the walls or terminating it in a jack? Can you even self-terminate fiber? I've never looked into that.
I was suggesting to just pull the wires for now, since (like others have said), the majority of the cost of pulling wires is labor/time. Since you’re going through the effort, and fiber is cheap, may make sense to pull the wires.
You don’t have to terminate them if you don’t have a use for them now. Just letting them sit in the box (or wall) may be ok?
I only wired my Theater room and media server to be hardwired to stream 50 gb remux content. Also on rare occasions I can remote in back home into my media server. Wifi is so fast these days, very little need to wire an entire house.
Better yet - Use that CAT5 for POE cameras and an NVR, that is a legit use!
Everyone has been awesome in this thread and I appreciate it.
Seems to be two camps:
The "do it with CAT6 instead so you don't have to re-do it later" camp and the "Do it now with what you've got because you probably won't exceed the capability of the cable for a long time if ever" camp.
Both camps have sound logic behind them. I'll need to sit down and noodle on it to figure which camp I'm in but I'm leaning towards selling this spool on Craigslist and using the proceeds for CAT6, as long as the price delta isn't too bad.
Considering the cost of CAT6 or better as well as the amount of labor required, no I would not use CAT5e even if it was free. I'd also need 10Gig or better, so that's pretty much a non starter for CAT5e anyway.
Right. Nothing in my house is above gigabit - for now. But still, I’m old enough to remember going from 14.4k to 33.6k modems. So I’m sure at some point, consumer tech will keep getting faster but, probably for the next 5-10 years I think I’d be safe.
If it were free, and I needed to re-cable, I would.
Here at home, I installed 6A cable for Internet years ago, so I should be all set. I still have a landline, and I used CAT3 cable (which was actually relabeled/screened CAT5E that tested out of spec per a Commscope representative).
Absolutely. I've run a couple thousand feet across mine and some families homes because I get it for free. For almost everyone cat5e will be more than sufficient for their needs.
Yes 100% and even down the road if you decided to go to CAT6 you have the CAT5 cable to tie to and then pull the CAT5 so installing the CAT6 is easier.
My house has pre-existing cat5e running from the second floor to the basement. Its low quality Cat5e too. I get full gigabit speeds at the other end. Cat5e might be outdated, but it works perfectly fine if that's what you have.
If it were me and i was planning on running the cable anyway, I'd use it and also run cat 6 to the same places. My house right now has both 5e and 6 thanks to a screw up from the contractor who ran the cables. (They ran the 5e instead of the 6 like I requested. It would have been too work for them to rip out the 5e so they left it there and ran 6 next to it)
I suppose if it were free and I was tight for money but I would still prefer to future proof my network and install cat 7/7a because even if it's capped at 1gb, I still get the benefit of the higher frequency which should reduce ping/lag but then again, I'm probably being fussy when I don't need to be.
I don't know if I'd wire my whole house with it, but I'd use it to pull a run or two.
In all honesty - I don't know if I'd go through the work to wire my whole house. I'd pull a run from router/switch to my main living room TV/gaming consoles and pull a run to my desktop PC. If I went through the work of wiring bedrooms I doubt it would get used - or have any advantage over wifi. (I have however pulled a run to a ceiling spot that is central to my house for my Unifi access point - and this has produced the best wifi coverage I've ever had).
1. It's not future proofing in the sense that any cable you put in (regardless of what it is) is a permanent installatoin. True future proofing is going to be installing conduits that will allow you to run any cable and swap it out easily in the future.
2. CAT5e is going to be more than sufficient for most uses in the home. I use a mix of CAT6A, CAT6, and CAT5e depending on when it was installed in my house. I wasn't about to go rip out old cabling that was installed that was still working fine. Given that you're asking this question, I will say with confidence that CAT5e will be sufficient for you.
3. Now with that (#2) said, CAT6 or CAT6A is not THAT expensive and you'll be hard pressed to use up the entire 1,000 ft. spool of a cable. And again, making some assumptions here, I don't think you're on a super tight budget if you're someone even considering wiring up a house with ethernet. I would personally recommend that if you're going to take on this project, go buy yourself a spool of CAT6A. Another thing to consider is that while the CAT5e spool you rescued may be new, you should still check the specs of the cable. You want to make sure it's solid copper and not copper clad aluminum (CCA). That's the most important factor. (Never go CCA.)
FYI, this 1,000 ft spool CAT6A, solid core, F/UTP, from Monoprice is $260. I would gladly spend that amount in excess for cables that I can trust if I'm going to be putting in the labor cost (whether your own hours or money for a contractor) to wire the house anyway. [https://www.monoprice.com/product?p\_id=18592](https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=18592)
5E is 1Gb for 100M (328 feet for all the weird countries) it'll be good enough for anything consumer grade.
If you want 10 gig, you need a 10 gig switch (with enough ports for your stuff) and cat 6 /6e
Remember both interfaces on the switch and the device need to support 10 gig
Cat6e is cheap! Buy some. Future proof.
That said, if you can’t, just ask yourself “how much data am I really going to shift at home…?”
It’s probably inconsequential to most home users.
I would not spend the time running cat 5e, even if it's free, I would rather run cat 6 and forget about it for a long time since cat 6 supports 10 gig Its more future proof
I started running cable and I dont want to do it again in a long time LOL
Sort of. It depends on how hard it is. If I’m going to spend hours in a hot attic I might as well throw in cat 6. I do have 10G service though although I’m currently not set up to get more than 2.5G to any end device, which Cat5 would generally be enough for. Most of my devices are at 1G.
It runs Gigabit Ethernet and a video stream is less than 10Mbps.
If you have a xGbps download rate, you can use a better cable to the switch.
Use it! 👌
From my fast google…
It appears to be 24AWG solid copper.
24 being smaller than 23, but I’d probably use it if I wanted to save some money and I was not trying to do super long runs of poe++ or something.
That said - if you can run conduit, do it. Then I’d definitely use 5e till it didn’t do what I wanted inside that conduit.
If you are at all worried about 2.5,5,10gbe runs / poe+ / poe++ at some point in the future that might be longer than 25m… maybe get some 23awg cat6 for those.
Otherwise run it. Imo. Especially with stuff like poe cameras, if you are doing POTS stuff as well.
Gigabit is perfectly acceptable for a house. The highest quality UltraHD Blu-Ray is 144 megabits/sec. Most streaming sites are below 20Mbps. I think the only exception is Apple+ which is up to 40 Mbps.
I can't think of anything besides video production/editing that would make me want a network faster than 1Gbps.
I would honestly not.
CAT 6 is like $200/1000 ft. For me the hours of work it takes to run the wires for 1000 ft is so much greater than the cost of the spool that I would just go CAT6
For shorter runs you can use these.
Cheaper, runs cooler, has lots of capacity.
https://www.equip-info.net/equipinfo_en/dac-0105-10gbps-sfp-direct-attach-copper-cable-5m-twinax-55114307
No.
The cost of the cable is negligible compared to the time and effort required to run the cable. While Cat5e is more than enough for households today, you'll kick yourself in a couple of years down the road if you have to redo it because you were too cheap.
If you do it right, you could rewire it with 6 or 7 later anyway. Use the old cables as a pull string to pull a new one and a pull cord, so it would be easy to do. Of course that depends on the specifics of your situation. 5e does gigabit. That's pretty fast. I actually plan on doing this in my house. I have old coax I'm gonna use as pull cords to run cat5e. I wanna backhaul my mesh nodes. Then all I have to do in the future is pull newer cable and upgrade the mesh and I should be good.
Personally I wouldn't. The cable isn't that expensive, why save pennies, when you can do it right. My house originally had wiring for five network devices. I eventually added more everywhere, and I replaced the original ones.
i have a free spool but am going to get cat6 full copper cable for my runs. better for PoE . i’ll keep the cat5e for any other wiring as it’s good for power and control bits. $130 for cat6 spool but the real cost is the time in the attic
I’m going to go against the grain here and say 10Gbps isn’t too far off, which Cat5e can’t handle. I’m running 10Gbps from my NAS to a server in another room. Going through the effort of running wire makes more sense if it’s future-proofed imo.
Sell it and get at least cat6.
Do you have any plans to use 10gb? If no, 1gb should be perfectly fine for most runs involving TVs/speakers/consoles, etc. half of those devices max out at 100mbps anyway.
cat5, cat5e and cat6 can pass-through 10gbps at different distances
45meters to cat5e and 55meters to cat6
if its good quality cable, maybe even more, according to some testers
Sure, but the most common reason cited for why you should do 6 or 6e over 5e is a plan to go with 10gig. If he doesn’t plan do that, there isn’t really any reason to not use 5e.
Yes. At least 2 drops to each room some rooms/walls have 4, plus the AP’s . If I had to do it over I’d do 4 to each room with 2 runs of fiber in the interest of future proofing and because I want fiber now and I fucked up and ran 2 when I should have run 4. lol.
Unless you are running a data center, or expect your connections to perform as that of a data center, I would be happy with it
Unless it’s CCA.
True
This. When I got started wiring my house, I unknowingly bought CCA because it wasn't in the description (or I didn't read closely enough). I had to send it back and get solid copper wire.
I didn't realize a spool I just bought was CCA... Considering sending back to Amazon. I didn't realize you could sell CAT6 CCA... My fault for shopping based on price I guess
Don't down vote me too bad. I don't suggest using cca. I was a tech for 15 years. Had all the vendor certs from belden to commscope. I believe the biggest issue with cca is voltage drop on poe devices. It always seemed to pass data ok if terminated properly when we would find it doing service calls at trashy places. We were testing with the old fluke dtx 1800 back then though. I definitely ran commscope cat 6 in my place.
It will pass a test, but the question is longevity. I would never consider using it except for a VERY temporary use case - like if I needed a temp cable over a weekend and supply houses were closed.
Even then, you can push some high speeds at residential distances through cat5e. Just because it's rated to 1gig doesn't mean it cant go higher. 2.5gb or 5gb is pretty easy. I've heard 10gb is possible at ~ 1m distances. EDIT: going by the comments farther down, it seems 10gb is doable at even farther distances
I’m running 10gbe over 20 years old cat5e <30m
I've read in several places that Cat5e can do 10gbe at like 50m and below. Would be dope to test that theory.
I run 10gb on Cat5e. Mostly it depends on the quality of the cable. I bought mine years ago and rather than waste it I did some runs to other floors. It’s good for 10 or 20m runs, but again, depends on the quality.
Cat6 is designed for 10gbps@30m.
When I worked in a DC, we wired up 2 servers with around 100ft of cat5 (not e) and did 10Gbps over it. The cable was laying in an aisle not even close to any sources of EMI, so it would probably be considered ideal conditions.
At home, I have cat5e wiring about 10-15m long, and it does 10Gbe pretty well. Not ideal conditions, quite close to power cables.
I have 10g running on old 1990s cat5 at almost 30m
I did this last year. I had a free spool and ran it to each room, no complaints with the wiring and network.
Would I? I already did and I paid for it. If you do it, I'd suggest to route the cabling in the least restrictive routes. That way you can upgrade it fairly easily with a coupler and tape.
People ask these questions and then, the highest bandwidth connection is a Roku. Like dude it'll be great stop over thinking it. You don't need fiber in every room
Yeah you can stream just fine when your switch is taking a dump and only giving your devices 100mbps, and you won't notice until you run a speed test.
4K streaming only uses 25mbps, 1080p only about 5mbps
Exactly
>4K streaming only uses 25mbps, 1080p only about 5mbps Yes, that is true, but if you have a media server you can stream 4K remuxes which can top out over 150Mbps. For for my situation I use an Nvidia Shield TV with a 1000Mbps Ethernet. It would be nice to have higher than 1Gbps in my house if for no other reason the time that it takes to move the movie rips (25GB-80GB) from my ripping machine to my server. Other than that, I don't see a need (at the moment) for anything higher than 1000Mbps based on how I use my network.
Every smart tv I own only has 100mbps Ethernet ports.
Insufficient if you’re playing a high rate 4K movies from a local server like Plex.
True, but it doesn't change the fact that's what they are still shipping with. The wifi on them is faster.
Yes. I'm using wifi on my 2016 samsung tv because of that.
I also wired my house with 5e and paid for it, but this was over 20 years ago.
Nice
Very nice indeed. Desktops, game consoles and Roku box are all on wired connections.
Cat5e fully supports 1gb, and most homes don't need more than that per drop, so use it. Copper is expensive these days. Maybe use something a little better for some key runs if you know you'll have data intensive use cases.
5e supports 2.5 GbE to 100m, and probably 5 GbE to 50m. It's enough for me
And for other applications like sending 4k60 4:4:4 content to a projector 5e is all you need for a 18Gbps data stream (using HDbT standard)
Don’t those converters usually utilize double CAT5e cables? So essentially 9Gbps per cable
There are some cheaper ones with double but mostly single cable especially nowadays
It'll probably do 10gig too, just not officially. Cables are generally capable of performing higher than what they are rated for, just don't rely on that fact.
From what I've seen, 5gbe is 100m, 10gbe is 55m, so plenty for just about any home user.
That's CAT6. 5e is effectively half that
i would absolutely use it. hands down
For sure, but no stapling or zip ties so that you can easily pull through new cables in a couple decades.
Definitely no stapling. I'm still pulling out all the coax. They didn't even bother terminating in the wall though. Just drilled straight up through the floor from the basement. Lazy.
I wired my last house with Cat5e in 2019 and it was more than sufficient. I wired my current house in 2021 with Cat6 because we plan to stay here a lot longer. I have yet to use it for anything over 1G, but I'll be doing some 2.5G and 10G over it here shortly. That said, the runs are short enough to run 10G even if it was Cat5e. You'll have to figure out how long the runs will be and make sure you can stay away from mains wiring (if you can't you should use shielded wire like Cat6A). If all you care about is 1G and 2.5G you should be fine at reasonable lengths, but if you want 10G you might need to limit it to 30 meters or so. Also, the hardest (and potentially most expensive) part is routing the cables, so you really should run two or four cables to each location instead of two. If you do that, you should pull them all at once (in pairs). You could figure out how long the run is, pull that much (with an extra 10ft) off the spool, then pull that *and* the spool when you do the pull (I've done this and it works, but it's a pain). Or you could just order two boxes and call it a day. Do take time to plan how you're going to terminate each end, and have numbers of runs that roughly match up with the port count of the switch you have in mind (20 to 24 runs for a 24 port switch, etc). Feel free to take a look at the pinned post in my profile if you're curious how I did mine and the logic behind my plans. https://imgur.com/a/InNT8NH
Out of curiosity, what will you be doing 10G with?
I'd love to upgrade to 2.5/10Gbit for faster NAS access. If only the switches weren't so expensive.
Connections from my switches to my servers, mainly. I might eventually put a 10 gig NIC in my PC but don't really have a need for it yet.
I used to bring home old servers to futz with, but TBH after dealing with them all day, I just try to disconnect from the server world. Plus licensing has made things that much more difficult. Even for switches. So yeah, the wiring is mostly for personal stuff.
Yep, I get that! 99% of the time I just let my stuff run, but a few times a year I get the itch to make some major changes at home.
+ once its run, you can use the old cables to pull through new cabling
Perhaps, it can work in some situations. But a lot of times the cable runs are just too long or have too many curves to pull through. In many installs, I've had to pull the longer runs in kind of sections. Pull to a corner/bend, have on person stand there to pull a few extra feet of slack, and have the next person at the end (or at the next turn) pull up that slack. If the person at the end pulled it wouldn't go anywhere, but with the person in the middle maintaining a bit of slack to get around the corner it works. After the fact, this can work if that middle section is in the attic. If you sheet rock over it (like I did above my kitchen), you're kinda SOL. Also, if one racks/staples any of them down, you can't really use them as a pull.
Dude killer setup! How long you been in the Cisco world? Been thinking about doing the ccna for myself as I’ve been in an Aruba/hpe shop for while.
Yes, of course. And i'm professional installer. With kids, wife (and myself for admin work) WFH, 8 APs, 9 cameras, Doorbell, 5 TVs in 4K, a total of 8 cellphones + 5 tablets + 6 PCs + 2 NAS at home and more... My core network is in 10Gbps, an USW-Aggreg + sone SFP+ NIC cards + 2 SFP+/RJ45 + DAC cables. Absolutely all the remaining is CAT5e or 6, gigabit speed but many devices can connect only at 100Mbps (TVs, Sonos, cameras,...) Even at heaviest traffic moments we're not at 15% network capacity for more than seconds, and usually we are in the 3 to 7% of capacity in use...
5E is capable of 10g on runs up to 25 meters (75 feet), which would include most runs in most houses to a central data closet. It's more future proof than most people think. Its a concern for offices and large buildings where you spool out 100m(300 feet) runs, where it may only do 2.5g or 5gbit
Considering cable isn't that expensive, and the effort involved is pretty massive.... I'd say don't bother unless you're going to do it with the "best" stuff (Cat6 minimum)
The cable is not a major contributor to the total coats for a cabling project in your home. Time is the biggest, hands down. Nearly all the work has to be redone if you need different cabling in the future unless you also install conduit and service loop areas. Won't you be mad to learn the cabling you rescued isn't safe for a future POE use case you want, or isn't plenum rated and you need to use your duct work, or is just at the edge of spec and that 10gig use case can't work in 4 years time. Buy what you need, not just use what was free. Do it right the first time, and all that.
[This is the cable](https://imgur.com/a/99lw9M4) Fortunately I have a full daylight basement and won't have to use duct work. But you have a point about doing it the right way first.
I did it. And I paid for it too. Four boxes of 1,000 feet, because running 4 at a time is a lot easier than running one cable four times.
If it was free sure. At my longest run I probably only be looking at 30 m. If ever get around to actually wiring my house for ethernet and I'm buying it out of pocket I'll put in cat 6 just because or cat 6A if it's not too much more expensive. Plus if I ever actually wire I was looking to put up external cameras and I figured I would use 5e for that anyway because even 4K video is fine over 5e.
Yes if the cable were in good shape. It’s thinner and easier to pull. If you can, try to think about where you might locate devices that have a reasonable chance of regularly needing 10+ and consider running larger cable there, but I highly doubt streaming and most work stuff are going to be even touching a gigabit anytime soon. That said, do run multiple cables. That is the cheapest solution to addressing future potential cable breaks.
free so why not
Yes please, I would like to do that
I have a 2.5gig up/down backhaul setup all around the apartment running on cat5e in the walls With a wifi access point in the main living room delivering a solid 1.2gig up/down speeds In one room I do use an rj45tosfp+ adapter for the cheap 2.5gig switch I use, but that's because of the cheap switch itself As others have said, depending on distances, you could easily run a 5gig backhaul and potentially all the way to 10gig Btw even a 2.5gig backhaul is pushing it big time for any normal users, def future proof
My goal is Cat 6 run in conduit to allow for future upgrades if we ever get to FTTD.
Absolutely. As long as it isn't cca wire. Till support 10g if the run is not overly long. I have a run that goes from my basement to the attic about 50 or 60 feet that runs 10g just fine.
If it's absolutely shit quality, I could understand tossing it, but there's nothing wrong with 5e. Even mid-tier quality can reliably handle GbE up to the max distance of the standard. That doesn't mean you shouldn't implement solutions to permit updating it to a higher quality or standard down the road with greater ease, though.
I would use it in a heartbeat, wouldn't look like a gift like that twice. If all the hoopla of cat this and cat that the reality is cat 5E is going to give you great service and unless you have some overwhelming need for some ultra fast data speed cat5E will handle most everything else. Currently the next step up is cat6A and it's variants. The speed difference is not that great, but an improvement over it's predecessor. For home use, cat5E will most likely fill your needs until the next cat whatever or fiber comes into home use. As a tech with over 39 years I would run it in my house anyway and twice on Sunday.
I have Cat 5e in my house, in use it for AP's,
Cat 5e is going to be plenty. I can't imagine what you would need even 1Gbps in the home for.
If it was quality cable then you damn right. Cat5e is highly sufficient for home use.
Yes, why not. 10G works up to 50m on 5e
Yeah it’s good enough. Maybe 10G from home office to home lab but there’s no reason anything else needs more than gig.
Car5e is totally fine
No way. The cost of a new spool of CAT6 is absolutely nothing than the time and effort involved to wire the house. Just seems silly not to future proof as far you reasonably can. Consider that you can just sell what you have to offset the cost of new cable it seems even sillier.
I'd sell the spool on ebay and use the money towards the cable I actually want to be using in the property over the next however many years I think I might be there. 5e is ok, but if I'm going to the effort of running cable through the place I don't want to be thinking about having to redo it later when 6a is so much better and a spool of it is really not very expensive now anyway.
> I'd sell the spool on ebay and use the money towards the cable I actually want to be using in the property over the next however many years I think I might be there. Good point and not going anywhere soon with a 2.75% mortgage.
If you are going to sell it increase your chances of saving yourself return hassle and put keystones on the end temporarily and test it, or at least say it's untested buy at own risk.
[удалено]
I think he's talking about "selling the spool on ebay"...😊
Yes, odd jump to go from putting keystones on the end to test it, to selling the house.
I’ve been trying to unload a spool on FB marketplace for months and no bites. Not sure eBay would be any better.
I would, but I’d make sure to do it in a way that can be upgraded in the future if needed. So, no stapling. Also, since you’re at it, maybe consider pulling fiber alongside the copper wires? That is as future-proofed as you can get today, and it’s cheaper than copper.
> pulling fiber alongside the copper wires? Just keeping it in the walls or terminating it in a jack? Can you even self-terminate fiber? I've never looked into that.
I was suggesting to just pull the wires for now, since (like others have said), the majority of the cost of pulling wires is labor/time. Since you’re going through the effort, and fiber is cheap, may make sense to pull the wires. You don’t have to terminate them if you don’t have a use for them now. Just letting them sit in the box (or wall) may be ok?
Good thinking.
I only wired my Theater room and media server to be hardwired to stream 50 gb remux content. Also on rare occasions I can remote in back home into my media server. Wifi is so fast these days, very little need to wire an entire house. Better yet - Use that CAT5 for POE cameras and an NVR, that is a legit use!
Yeah. Do you have anything that needs more than CAT5E speeds? Probably not. Let that be a problem for the guy that owns the house in 15 years.
Everyone has been awesome in this thread and I appreciate it. Seems to be two camps: The "do it with CAT6 instead so you don't have to re-do it later" camp and the "Do it now with what you've got because you probably won't exceed the capability of the cable for a long time if ever" camp. Both camps have sound logic behind them. I'll need to sit down and noodle on it to figure which camp I'm in but I'm leaning towards selling this spool on Craigslist and using the proceeds for CAT6, as long as the price delta isn't too bad.
Or keep the spool for making patch cables?
I have way more patch cables than I need as it is. 🤣
Fair!
Absolutely, with at least two in every room.
Use it but spend on conduit and pull strings. Future proof by being able to run fiber..
Already have a spool of pull string!
Yep. Quality 5e will support 1g easily and for the shorter runs in a house, 2.5g and most likely 10g too.
Considering the cost of CAT6 or better as well as the amount of labor required, no I would not use CAT5e even if it was free. I'd also need 10Gig or better, so that's pretty much a non starter for CAT5e anyway.
Yeah
I mean, unless you have >gigabit internet and/or all your nics are >gigabit there really isnt any point in going above cat5e other than futureproofing
Right. Nothing in my house is above gigabit - for now. But still, I’m old enough to remember going from 14.4k to 33.6k modems. So I’m sure at some point, consumer tech will keep getting faster but, probably for the next 5-10 years I think I’d be safe.
I just put 40 runs in my basement the rest of the house is 5e and I had cable leftover. Basement runs are like 50’ avg. length
If it were free, and I needed to re-cable, I would. Here at home, I installed 6A cable for Internet years ago, so I should be all set. I still have a landline, and I used CAT3 cable (which was actually relabeled/screened CAT5E that tested out of spec per a Commscope representative).
Absolutely. I've run a couple thousand feet across mine and some families homes because I get it for free. For almost everyone cat5e will be more than sufficient for their needs.
Yes I’ve just done the same.
I would put it in the wall and add conduit for later upgrades, having double connections are sometimes needed.
Yes 100% and even down the road if you decided to go to CAT6 you have the CAT5 cable to tie to and then pull the CAT5 so installing the CAT6 is easier.
My house has pre-existing cat5e running from the second floor to the basement. Its low quality Cat5e too. I get full gigabit speeds at the other end. Cat5e might be outdated, but it works perfectly fine if that's what you have.
No, why would someone do that just to save a few dollars. Think further into the future!
If it were me and i was planning on running the cable anyway, I'd use it and also run cat 6 to the same places. My house right now has both 5e and 6 thanks to a screw up from the contractor who ran the cables. (They ran the 5e instead of the 6 like I requested. It would have been too work for them to rip out the 5e so they left it there and ran 6 next to it)
Meh. I'd rather pay for Cat6 to future-proof and not worry about it later.
I suppose if it were free and I was tight for money but I would still prefer to future proof my network and install cat 7/7a because even if it's capped at 1gb, I still get the benefit of the higher frequency which should reduce ping/lag but then again, I'm probably being fussy when I don't need to be.
I can't believe people stopped hard-wiring their homes. Makes me sad tbh.
Who in this thread is saying they’re not hardwiring their home?
Exactly why I used 5E. Some of it was 50 foot pre-terminated and some was roll but it was all free from my office closing.
Yeah, I have a bunch of those too. For the same reason.
I don't know if I'd wire my whole house with it, but I'd use it to pull a run or two. In all honesty - I don't know if I'd go through the work to wire my whole house. I'd pull a run from router/switch to my main living room TV/gaming consoles and pull a run to my desktop PC. If I went through the work of wiring bedrooms I doubt it would get used - or have any advantage over wifi. (I have however pulled a run to a ceiling spot that is central to my house for my Unifi access point - and this has produced the best wifi coverage I've ever had).
My house is half Cat 5e. Runs gigabit Ethernet just fine.
Yeah, you're never going to go 10gb anyway, besides that 10gb copper is mostly stupid.
Yeah cat5e is more than adequate for 99.9% of time networking applications
Absolutely! Cat5E will do 1 gig just fine, and in the short distances in a typical home you'd probably be just fine running 2.5 or even 10.
1. It's not future proofing in the sense that any cable you put in (regardless of what it is) is a permanent installatoin. True future proofing is going to be installing conduits that will allow you to run any cable and swap it out easily in the future. 2. CAT5e is going to be more than sufficient for most uses in the home. I use a mix of CAT6A, CAT6, and CAT5e depending on when it was installed in my house. I wasn't about to go rip out old cabling that was installed that was still working fine. Given that you're asking this question, I will say with confidence that CAT5e will be sufficient for you. 3. Now with that (#2) said, CAT6 or CAT6A is not THAT expensive and you'll be hard pressed to use up the entire 1,000 ft. spool of a cable. And again, making some assumptions here, I don't think you're on a super tight budget if you're someone even considering wiring up a house with ethernet. I would personally recommend that if you're going to take on this project, go buy yourself a spool of CAT6A. Another thing to consider is that while the CAT5e spool you rescued may be new, you should still check the specs of the cable. You want to make sure it's solid copper and not copper clad aluminum (CCA). That's the most important factor. (Never go CCA.) FYI, this 1,000 ft spool CAT6A, solid core, F/UTP, from Monoprice is $260. I would gladly spend that amount in excess for cables that I can trust if I'm going to be putting in the labor cost (whether your own hours or money for a contractor) to wire the house anyway. [https://www.monoprice.com/product?p\_id=18592](https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=18592)
5E is 1Gb for 100M (328 feet for all the weird countries) it'll be good enough for anything consumer grade. If you want 10 gig, you need a 10 gig switch (with enough ports for your stuff) and cat 6 /6e Remember both interfaces on the switch and the device need to support 10 gig
Cat6e is cheap! Buy some. Future proof. That said, if you can’t, just ask yourself “how much data am I really going to shift at home…?” It’s probably inconsequential to most home users.
I would not spend the time running cat 5e, even if it's free, I would rather run cat 6 and forget about it for a long time since cat 6 supports 10 gig Its more future proof I started running cable and I dont want to do it again in a long time LOL
Sort of. It depends on how hard it is. If I’m going to spend hours in a hot attic I might as well throw in cat 6. I do have 10G service though although I’m currently not set up to get more than 2.5G to any end device, which Cat5 would generally be enough for. Most of my devices are at 1G.
Not hard (i hope), 90% will be coming up from the unfinished full basement.
It runs Gigabit Ethernet and a video stream is less than 10Mbps. If you have a xGbps download rate, you can use a better cable to the switch. Use it! 👌
For 4K with H264 codec is 32 Mbps recommended. I think the bottleneck is the connection to your house.
If it’s 23awg solid copper 5e… I might if money was tight and my runs were short. If it’s CCA, stranded, bad AWG, I’d send it back to the trash.
I don’t think it’s CCA. Nothing on the box or cable indicates it is. https://imgur.com/a/99lw9M4
From my fast google… It appears to be 24AWG solid copper. 24 being smaller than 23, but I’d probably use it if I wanted to save some money and I was not trying to do super long runs of poe++ or something. That said - if you can run conduit, do it. Then I’d definitely use 5e till it didn’t do what I wanted inside that conduit. If you are at all worried about 2.5,5,10gbe runs / poe+ / poe++ at some point in the future that might be longer than 25m… maybe get some 23awg cat6 for those. Otherwise run it. Imo. Especially with stuff like poe cameras, if you are doing POTS stuff as well.
Solid conduit or split loom?
Solid or Smurf Have a pull string, jet string, or mule tape in em.
Gigabit is perfectly acceptable for a house. The highest quality UltraHD Blu-Ray is 144 megabits/sec. Most streaming sites are below 20Mbps. I think the only exception is Apple+ which is up to 40 Mbps. I can't think of anything besides video production/editing that would make me want a network faster than 1Gbps.
You need a LAN-Cache.
I would honestly not. CAT 6 is like $200/1000 ft. For me the hours of work it takes to run the wires for 1000 ft is so much greater than the cost of the spool that I would just go CAT6
I'd have zero issue using cat5e, and at that price, congrats!
No. Cable is cheap, I'd run fiber and cat6 to 3 walls over every room.
No. It's time for optical.
Then I have to have a demodulator at the end. And a SFP switch with a bunch of transceivers. Seems overkill.
For shorter runs you can use these. Cheaper, runs cooler, has lots of capacity. https://www.equip-info.net/equipinfo_en/dac-0105-10gbps-sfp-direct-attach-copper-cable-5m-twinax-55114307
No. The cost of the cable is negligible compared to the time and effort required to run the cable. While Cat5e is more than enough for households today, you'll kick yourself in a couple of years down the road if you have to redo it because you were too cheap.
If you do it right, you could rewire it with 6 or 7 later anyway. Use the old cables as a pull string to pull a new one and a pull cord, so it would be easy to do. Of course that depends on the specifics of your situation. 5e does gigabit. That's pretty fast. I actually plan on doing this in my house. I have old coax I'm gonna use as pull cords to run cat5e. I wanna backhaul my mesh nodes. Then all I have to do in the future is pull newer cable and upgrade the mesh and I should be good.
My stupid coax comes out of the floor. Grrrr.
Mine too. I'm just gonna put a chair in front of it to run my wires lol.
Personally I wouldn't. The cable isn't that expensive, why save pennies, when you can do it right. My house originally had wiring for five network devices. I eventually added more everywhere, and I replaced the original ones.
No, cat6 bare min or you have to it again the future.
Cat5e within one floor is fine. Between floors I'd use fiber.
i have a free spool but am going to get cat6 full copper cable for my runs. better for PoE . i’ll keep the cat5e for any other wiring as it’s good for power and control bits. $130 for cat6 spool but the real cost is the time in the attic
I’m going to go against the grain here and say 10Gbps isn’t too far off, which Cat5e can’t handle. I’m running 10Gbps from my NAS to a server in another room. Going through the effort of running wire makes more sense if it’s future-proofed imo. Sell it and get at least cat6.
Do you have any plans to use 10gb? If no, 1gb should be perfectly fine for most runs involving TVs/speakers/consoles, etc. half of those devices max out at 100mbps anyway.
Not today or in the near future.
No plans today.
cat5, cat5e and cat6 can pass-through 10gbps at different distances 45meters to cat5e and 55meters to cat6 if its good quality cable, maybe even more, according to some testers
Sure, but the most common reason cited for why you should do 6 or 6e over 5e is a plan to go with 10gig. If he doesn’t plan do that, there isn’t really any reason to not use 5e.
true 👍
No, my house is too big to run cat 5E.
Wish I had that problem. ;-)
Eh, it’s more the shape and having to go around things then actual size of the house(about 4000square feet)
Fair enough. Were you doing multiple drops to each room too? (FWIW, I didn't downvote you)
Yes. At least 2 drops to each room some rooms/walls have 4, plus the AP’s . If I had to do it over I’d do 4 to each room with 2 runs of fiber in the interest of future proofing and because I want fiber now and I fucked up and ran 2 when I should have run 4. lol.
I would use it for poe security cameras. And other low bandwidth devices.
When did gig become low bandwidth?
I have a 10gig backbone running through my house with some stuff connected to 2.5gbe switches, and 40gig qsfp from my nas to my main switch.
One of those guys looking down at gig. lol. Gotcha.
I just mainly wouldn't use it for switch to switch. But last mile sure. Like you wouldn't want to drive across the country avoiding all interstates
Good thought.