sundance-communications.com Forums Telephone Services Cabling Telephones Systems Wiring Cat3 vs Cat5e

Why would anyone won't to use obsolete Cat3 , pots works great on cat5e ?
Nobody installs that crap in Alberta!

Depends on the situation I suppose. Loop lengths could be one possibility. Could be in Alberta you don't have anything but a couple phones to worry about so it doesn't come into play.

that would be for inside wire

:toast: Lots of new construction in Alberta

We run cat3 if the job calls for plenum rated cable.... we get pvc cat3 for the the same (or more) price as cat5

Not the same situation with plenum rated cable.

Cat 3 is far from obsolete and is still the industry standard for telephone service. Also still less expensive and much eaier to work with in my neck of the woods.

Then again, your occupation speaks volumes.

professionalism cable installers who understand the proper cable for the application and who install standards compliant infrastructure that's who



cat 3 "obsolete crap " spoken like a true "CG" :rolleyes:

Festec, you do understand that a foot of CAT5 cable is roughly the equivalent of four feet of CAT3 due to the tight twisting of the pairs, right?

CAT4 cable and up was never designed or intended for voice use. Even CAT3 was originally designed for data networks, leaving CAT1 and CAT2 exclusively for voice. The cable manufacturers effectively phased out CAT1 and 2 in a cost-cutting effort.

I just finished an install of 50data and 30 voice in a plenum environment. I ran Cat5e and Cat3 all of it terminated to patch panels.

Running Cat5e for TDM voice is very costly due to the amount of labor required to install it. If it is plenum then it costs at least twice as much as Cat3. To charge the customer or, yourself for that matter, for something that costs two to three times as much and isn't necessary for the job, well that's just an unwise thing to do in my opinion.

However we are not talking apples to apples here. This forum is primarily used by business to business techs. Residentual wiring is a whole different ball game. So before things escalate I am closing this topic.