Cat53 vs cat6

[Guest]

Hello,
We are planning to upgrade our network infrastructure, right now we have a mix of cat 5 and cat5e cables. should i stick to cat5e or jump to cat 6 cables?? also planning to run an application needing a 1 gigabit bandwidth.

 

[GhislainG]

Cat5e is fine for Gigabit, but Cat5 has to be replaced. If you install new wiring, using Cat6 might make sense as it's better insulated than Cat5e. The maximum length (100m) is identical.

 

[Kewlx25]

while you're tearing crap up/out, might wanna look into CAT7a for any router to router or server connections.

I can't really see regular computers needing 7/7a, but pulling wire sucks and it might be nice to know your server connections are fairly future proof.

 

[djbracket]

Cat 6 cabling is only marginally more expensive than Cat5e especially from a horizontal infrastructure cost point of view. Also from a backbone / server / router cabling perspective the best practice is to pull some 50 micron multimode fiber along with it. Six strand fiber is pretty cheap and if you leave it unterminated until you need it there is even more cost savings - and you will be future proofing for at least another decade. They also make hybrid cable that has 2 Cat6 and 6 or 12 strands of 50 micron fiber all in one jacket - saves on materials and labor cost.