Help me choose a cat6 cable please

JDookie · 03-30-07, 01:52

Hi guys, I am currently rebuilding my house after being flooded by Hurricane Katrina, and am at the most fun part (in my opinion) of the building stage, wiring. I am about to wire my house for home networking, and want to utilize cat6 cable since all my computer systems and networking components are gigabit components. The thing is, I don't know enough about cat6 cable to know which kind to buy. Solid wire, Stranded wire, Insulated, Non-Insulated???

What should I be using?

JCrawford · 03-30-07, 02:19

where are u mississippi or new orleans??

JDookie · 03-30-07, 02:27

New Orleans

Also, what is considered a good price on a 500' spool?

ifoam · 04-01-07, 09:00

Get soildcore UTP Cat6 cable..A good brand like belkin.

If you think belkin is too expensive, i've had good luck with the following company:
CAT 6 UTP Bulk Cable PVC Solid

truzoom · 04-01-07, 11:06

Insulated Stranded with some EJ-RZ45 ends will make the task simple and nearly error-proof.

I recently finished making about 12 bundles x 10 cables x 65' ea at work and those EZ-RJ ends made it a breeze.

JDookie · 04-01-07, 01:55

Okay, I think I just got my answer. I just found a site called lanshack.com and they had a cat6 tutorial on there.

According to this site, solid cable is meant for stationary type cabling, like in walls, while stranded cable is meant for patch cords or anywhere else it will be moved around a lot.

My only question left is shielded or un-shielded

ifoam · 04-01-07, 02:11

shielded and unshielded mean utp and stp respectively.

utp is more widely used. I've never used stp and you don't really need it unless you are going to be running cable next to or very close to machines that generate a lot of emi.

since you said you are going to run this at home, you'll be good with utp (unshielded twisted pair)

JDookie · 04-01-07, 02:13

I am seeing cables rated at different frequencies. Does this really matter or is it a marketing tool? 400Mhz, 500Mhz, 600Mhz, etc.

ifoam · 04-01-07, 02:23

it's for future compatibility. iirc, cat6 is not a standard yet. the high the frequency the more "future proof" it will be. other cables like cat 3, 4, 5, 5e all run at different frequencies. any of the frequencies will work though.

JDookie · 04-01-07, 02:28

Yeah, I even saw that there is a cat7 coming out. Each pair of wires within the cable is insulated vs. strips of insulation running through the twisted pairs like cat6, crazy.

ifoam · 04-01-07, 02:32

what's crazy is that they are making cat7 and the same time as cat6.

yeah, the limitation of speed is crosstalk. with the frequencies in the cable being so high, data from one pair literally jumps through the air onto another cable making errors in the data. that's why cat7 has each pair individually insulated.

chefwong · 04-01-07, 04:08

JDookie -

Shielded is very $$. Unshielded is fine. Just MAKE sure the runs are not paraller with electrical cable. To be frank, the costs of Cat6 vs. Cat5e is somewhat of a diff material wise. Better brands do make a difference. I tend to like the Nordx/Commscope/Berk-Tek brand of cabling.
Belden is good stuff too !

For a house run, I would just make sure you run *enough* since the walls are open and don't forget the coaxial for TV and stuff. If the walls are open, consider alarm as well !
It's ALOT easier, cleaner and cheaper to do it now.