sundance-communications.com/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Cabling Telephones Systems Wiring Cat 5 vs Cat 5e

Have a picky cust who wants us to quote job, wants us to certify existing wire ( Cat 5) or replace if needed...they are getting all Gigabit switches. Haven't taken tester to site yet but tech say's all wire he has seen so far is standard Cat 5 not 5e is it worth testing..I guess ? is will plain Cat 5 certify for Gigabit?
Thanks........

I don't know if it will certify for Gigabit but I have accounts running Gigabit on Cat 5

That's what I thought to Merritt..we are running Gigabit on it now, I think they are being a little anal about it...but if they want it "certified" who am I to argue right?..:-)

The thing is you probably won't be able to cert the CAT5 at 10/1000. Its hard to cert CAT6 for 10/1000.

It will not certify for Gigabit bit of course you can run gigabit devices on it but they will not run at gigabit bandwidth.

??? Really?
I've only certified about 70 cat6 runs. A government job of course. Other than the first couple where I did them improperly (brand new jack design and I didn't read the instructions until coffee time - doh!) They all passed with ample headroom - even the longest runs pushing 80 meters. Don't see how it's hard to certify cat6 if you are halfway careful. Even a sparkie can do it.

There is another current thread deals with pretty much the same topic where this link was presented: https://www.flukenetworks.com/fnet/...icles/1000BASE-T+over+copper+cabling.htm

From reading this I understand that 85% or more of properly installed cat5 should meet 1000BASE-T requirements.

There is no straight answer to your question.

I have several older clients who bought into the AT&T's SYSTEMAX structured cable solution, which turned out to easily support 155Mbps of traffic ("155" being the magic number for Asyncronous Transfer Mode...a key focus at the time).

The early 802.3ab standard, which offered Gigabit speeds over CAT5 cable was formally adopted by ANSI, yet rarely practiced in the field. A minimum of three 24 AWG pairs of copper (rather than two) were required to pull this off. Still, distance and installation habits tend to become obvious after installation, ncombine to play a precarious role with the ultimate abilities of your cable.

Still, you'd be better off installing CAT5e or CAT6 if node-to-node tranfers require it. What the hell is he talking about?

Ready? Since data bottlenecks are largely dictated by the WAN link speed, I submit that a surprisingly large number of modern clients TODAY, would sense any performance differences had I supplanted their existing infrastructure with 10-Base-2 coax wiring.

So will CAT5 pass the stringent 1000Mbps standards? It very well may. Oh sure, CAT5e cable is constucted with elevated standards in mind, but don't forget which country it is that most of our cable comes from (if you answered "Graybar", then I'll happily laugh with you over your loss).

Timmy your analogy leaves me at a loss for words........I'm still laughing about the "Greybar" comment !!! I know what everyone is saying..heck we all know you can get the CG's stuff to work on Cat3 if the distance is not all that far and connections are good...just can't certify. I've done the certifications given the wonderful books to cust's and gone back on jobs years later only to find the book on the shelf collecting dust...My only concern is that if we don't upgrade them..as soon as their "Microsoft Gold" Partner comes in one day with a problem he will point at the wire...and use the ole "Not my problem"

The computers say they are connecting at 1 gig

True Merritt, but LaneComm is correct in that the link will experience lots of retransmissions. Because that occurs at a lower OSI layer, it won't be obvious to the user that this is happening. At best, you might notice "a bit of slowness" with large downloads.