Cat5e compatible with Cat3?

[Arbator177]

Okay so I've been staying at my friends house for a while and his family are having a hard time with the internet which keeps dropping out. I looked at the router and Modem which are actually quite new (can look up models later if need be) and noticed that their neighbors who are on the same internet provider have no problems with their internet.

I looked at the ethernet they were using and it appears to be Cat3 which is quite out of date I presume. I know a little on Networking and know that if they were able to even upgrade to Cat5 or even Cat5e that they can potentially up there speed by 10 times.

My question is that I'm wondering if it is possible to switch out the cable simply and have it work as normal or if that the wiring in the house would be older and not compatible with newer versions of Ethernet.

Let me know any information that could be useful! I believe I can solve this without calling out someone to do the work unless the house needs to be rewired or whatever...but yeah Thanks in advance!

Jason

 

[nuts32605]

CAT 3 is for phone lines, CAT 5/5e/6 is for Ethernet. Unless they are using modified wiring to convert the 8 wires in CAT 5 to the 4 wires in CAT 3, in which case, they'll only be able to get 100 Mbps over that line.

 

[inerax]

Cat-3 cable is still used in PBX phone systems and Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) installations, along with the slower 10Base-T Ethernet installations. Cat-5 cable is widely used for 10/100Base-T Internet and analog voice installations. Even though it is newer than Cat-3, Cat-5 is no longer a standard, having been replaced by the Cat-5e specification that supports 1000 megabits, or gigabit Ethernet

I would have them replace the Cat-3 just to make sure its not a problem. Also, check for cordless phones at 2.4GHz. this can cause the wireless to drop out.

 

[OriginalCadaver]

Look at the drops, how many of the wires are connected? If you see 2 wires it's cat3. If that's the case you would need to rewire to get cat5e or 6 speeds.

 

[ronintexas]

The problem in using existing CAT3 wiring in a home is that it is wired for phones. You can run phones in parallel (i.e. using the two wires, splice 3 cables together - one live, two going to phones), and often this is the way the wiring is done....so you will have connectivity problems, not to mention the interference from the actual phone signal. I would recommend against trying this....

 

[Guest]

OP can you define "dropping out".

Generally data transmission over the OSI model is quite resilient, so even dated cabling is unlikely to result in a complete disconnection (even if it is actually CAT3).

(assuming there aren't also phones using the same cabling, as above...)