IvyKing
macrumors 6502a
That's funny as I have a spool of Cat %A cable in my garage. Bought that 25 years ago from Fry's, back when they usually had a couple dozen checkouts on slow days.
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Are most of you wired or using wifi?
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Krevnik
macrumors 601
Agreed. I'd even argue that 6A is even pushing it unless you are trying to wire up a multi-unit building to a central switch. Cat 6 can do 10Gbit at 50 meters, which is ~3x the length of my house, and even if we shoved the central switch into a corner of the house, only a couple runs would even be able to break 15m.
Labeling for products is a whole different matter than the spec itself, and companies that made cables exceeding the spec would want to try to differentiate somehow with their labeling. Without knowing the actual claims for the spool, I can only guess what the "A" is meant to stand for, but it's not an official category of ethernet cable. And by that point, 5e should have been taking over. Maybe a last gasp of someone selling overbuilt Cat 5 cables that were meant for longer 1Gbit runs?
As far as I know, the only change 5e made to the cables was tighter twists to the wire pairs. This reduced the crosstalk and made 1Gbps speeds more reliable across the 100m distances that these cables are usually spec'd out to, which was something Category 5 cables were intended for from the start but didn't achieve consistently enough in practice.
I don't know how you'd even slip in a "5A" spec when 5e made one change to 5. 6A itself only exists because they wanted something cheaper than Cat 7, but with enough performance to handle 10Gbps over 100m distances.
I my rented apartment I have the optical fiber arriving to a cabinet (in the kitchen) and from there cat 5e cables going to every room.
I had to add an access point to one extreme of the apartment as WiFi signal was killed by the concrete walls.
Fiber is 10 Gb, so WiFi is faster than wired when I am close enough to the main router:
Still, I use wired connection wherever I can, like for the iMac, a Mac mini used as headless media server (mostly for Roon), the tv, the Apple TV, a media streamer and so on.
I had to add an access point to one extreme of the apartment as WiFi signal was killed by the concrete walls.
Fiber is 10 Gb, so WiFi is faster than wired when I am close enough to the main router:
Still, I use wired connection wherever I can, like for the iMac, a Mac mini used as headless media server (mostly for Roon), the tv, the Apple TV, a media streamer and so on.
Johnontheweb
macrumors member
vince22
macrumors 6502a
also have base M4 Mac mini setup, I endup using hard wire USB4 to 5G adapter plug at the back of mini4 (thunderbolt port), see speed differences Wifi 6 (AX) vs hard wire (Cat 5e), Xfinity plan 1.2gb/40gb.
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alecgold
macrumors 68000
Why would I use a cable that is slower then my internet connection? I’ve got 2.5gbps fibre and reach speeds of up to 1gbps between device and the access point. 6 would be good enough for the moment, but I installed them in the brick walls and concrete floors of my home. So why not future proof them and use 7?
The price difference was next to nothing and the stiffness of the cable futile. So it is a bit more annoying to add a connector to them? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Krevnik
macrumors 601
Sorry, typos have been flowing pretty freely here, I should have double checked.
Should be able to. 2.5Gbps fits in the 100Mhz signal bandwidth of 5e, so on paper it is good for 100m. There are reasons why it may not be able to go the whole length in practice, but 10-20m is pretty conservative.
IvyKing
macrumors 6502a
It amuses me to know that the Gigabit and faster Ethernet PHY's are really modems as opposed to binary drivers on 10Base-T and 100Base-T. It also amuses me to think that a 2.5G Ethernet is a thousand times fast than the ArcNet network that was my first exposure to networking.
Good to hear that a short run of Cat 5e may be able to support 2.5G Ethernet - the original network implementation at my house was centered on a 100Mbps hub.
Good to hear that a short run of Cat 5e may be able to support 2.5G Ethernet - the original network implementation at my house was centered on a 100Mbps hub.
jakey rolling
macrumors 65816
With FTTH installs becoming increasingly common, it is probably not as far off as you think.
Ten years ago, it was difficult to imagine how a "regular" household might saturate a 100Mbps internet connection.
Ten years before that, the 12Mbps and 56Mbps limits that the original 802.11b and g protocols supported seemed like a ton of extra headroom for most ADSL and Cable internet users.
Ten years before that, everyone's household internet was measured in kilobits per second.
There is a 2-port installation in my home office that was the most difficult one to install because it is on an outer wall (my office is in a jutting-out front bedroom, so three of the four walls are outer walls). I couldn't just drill the floor behind it - I had to drill through the floor in front of the wall and then carve a 3" horizontal channel through the plywood underneath the carpet to get the cables to snake in behind the wall. I was planning to redo the main level floors in the house the following summer, so was okay with that (the wires were flush and the floor installed over them beautifully). I mildly regret installing only Cat 6 instead of at least 6a or 7 in that space because I know that I will never be able to replace those cables.
Permanent household installations are things that should be planned to last for 20 years. My new floor will last 20-30 years. Had I installed Cat 5e at that spot, it would already be at its theoretical limit. While I think that the Cat 6 will easily handle whatever speed I will be able to throw at it for the next 10 years, I think 20 years will be pushing it. If I were to do that job again today, I would absolutely run at least Cat 7 to that port, just to make sure that future me doesn't wind up hating present me.
Fishrrman
macrumors Nehalem
jakey:
"I mildly regret installing only Cat 6 instead of at least 6a or 7 in that space because I know that I will never be able to replace those cables"
I've come to the conclusion that any remodeling or new construction should have several "chases" (open conduits) installed between the floors of a home, including access to attic and basement.
Yes, they'll "look clunky".
But they could save A LOT of work if there's a need to upgrade cabling, or even replace it someday with an as-yet-unknown new technology.
How many homes were built with ethernet in the 1970s, 80s, or even 90s ...?
"I mildly regret installing only Cat 6 instead of at least 6a or 7 in that space because I know that I will never be able to replace those cables"
I've come to the conclusion that any remodeling or new construction should have several "chases" (open conduits) installed between the floors of a home, including access to attic and basement.
Yes, they'll "look clunky".
But they could save A LOT of work if there's a need to upgrade cabling, or even replace it someday with an as-yet-unknown new technology.
How many homes were built with ethernet in the 1970s, 80s, or even 90s ...?
Howard2k
macrumors 604
All of that is true. But at the same time most people simply have no idea at all how much Internet bandwidth they need, nor how to manage it.
GPON/XPON are absurdly over provisioned for the overwhelming majority of user's needs. But it's great that we have those options all the same.
Tyler O'Bannon
macrumors 65816
Faster speeds? Save for gaming, most people are downloading and uploading all day and a gigabit over WiFi is better than 100mbps wired?
Tyler O'Bannon
macrumors 65816
He said we was limited to 100mbps on wired. WiFi was pulling several times more. Unless he’s gaming….. better off on WiFi
nathansz
macrumors 68030
Howard2k
macrumors 604
Krevnik
macrumors 601
Yup. It's been too long since my digital communications EE classes for me to remember much of it, but when you are bandwidth limited on the wire (or radio), you get to come up with clever answers to reduce the bandwidth required to transmit your signal. PAM-5 takes a >1Ghz bandwidth requirement (assuming TTL serial) and drops it to 80Mhz. Not too shabby.
100Base-T does use PAM-3 encoding though to keep bandwidth requirements to around 15Mhz.
Here's a great followup. Linus did a project in an apartment. I counted 49 active wifi AP networks on his scanner.
Doesn't matter how good your devices are, your realistic throughput is going to be horrid
Doesn't matter how good your devices are, your realistic throughput is going to be horrid
I prefer wired network for gaming. When I use wifi, sometimes is not so stable...
😂The network sometimes freezes suddenly, causing a loose of my game.
😂The network sometimes freezes suddenly, causing a loose of my game.
I’ve got 500 symmetric so don’t bother with WiFi mostly because my house is metal framed and the signal bounces around and leaves dead spots. Wired my Mac mini to a switch by my broadband providers box downstairs
dmccloud
macrumors 68040
There's far too much variance just within the US to even give estimates. As an example, the top tier internet plan in Alaska (2.5Gbps down/75Mbps up) costs $189.99/month. But in Tennessee, I could get 2.5Gbps symmetric (upload and download) fiber for half of that price, and a 1Gb symmetric plan there is $67.99/month.