Cat 5 Patch Cable

[George7941]

I am connecting a Bell Modem in the basement to a booster on the first floor for TV. The modem gets its signal through a fiber optic cable.
Couple of questions.
I wired the RJ45 jacks on both ends of the patch cord according to the T568B standard in a straight through configuration, not crossed. Does it matter? Do the devices take care of straight/crossed wires internally?
I only have Cat 5 cable, not Cat 6, so I used Cat 5 cable. Bell tech support recommended Cat 6. Should I just buy a Cat 6 patch cord?

 

[blufeb95]

Most modern devices with gigabit or faster ports will auto crossover if necessary, for a gigabit line there's no real need for anything better than CAT 5e, even the newer 2.5gigabit adapters are meant to work fine over existing cat 5e lines, for the distances typical in most houses even 10 gigabit would probably work fine on CAT 5e.

 

[mk378]

Automatic crossover is part of the gigabit standard; crossover cables are never needed for modern equipment. Actually the whole concept of transmit and receive pairs is moot with Gb and higher, as it transmits in both directions on all 4 pairs. Each pair runs 250 Mb giving a total of 1 Gb.

 

[wwillson]

I wired the RJ45 jacks on both ends of the patch cord according to the T568B standard in a straight through configuration, not crossed.

This is perfectly fine.

 

[George7941]

Thanks, everybody.

 

[andrew_j]

You limited your bandwidth on booster likely to (Cat5)10/100 Mbps which is really slow even for low end high speed service. You might have Cat 5e which is significantly faster.

basically you have firehose at modem with a garden hose(Cat5) attached to deliver to extender

 

[Bottom_Feeder]

You limited your bandwidth on booster likely to 10/100 Mbps which is really slow even for low end high speed service. You might have Cat 5e which is significantly faster.

basically you have firehose with a garden hose(Cat5) attached of it to branch. Delivers water just slower , better than a trickle.

Using CAT5 will not limit network bandwidth to 100Mb. Using it in his situation will not bottleneck anything.

 

[George7941]

You limited your bandwidth on booster likely to 10/100 Mbps which is really slow even for low end high speed service. You might have Cat 5e which is significantly faster.

basically you have firehose with a garden hose(Cat5) attached of it to branch. Delivers water just slower , better than a trickle.

My mistake, I used Cat 5e cable which I had lying around. not Cat 5.
This is the cable

 

[JustinH]

I was told that Canada uses the T568a standard. The way I wire them in the US is T568b. Any truth to that?

 

[George7941]

I was told that Canada uses the T568a standard. The way I wire them in the US is T568b. Any truth to that?

I really do not know since I am not in the business. I can count on the fingers of my hand the number of Cat 5e wiring jobs I have done.

About fifteen years ago I was tasked with expanding the computer network wiring in a Catholic church in Toronto. I noticed that the existing wiring was using the T568b standard, so that is the way I have been wiring ever since.

 

[mk378]

The cat 5 standard was only in force for a couple of years before being replaced with cat 5e. There is very little cat 5 (not e) cable out in the field. Most of the better manufacturers produced cat 5 cable of sufficient quality to meet 5e before it existed, so there's really no problem running gigabit over old cat 5 especially if the length is short.

The choice of a or b wiring is not required by a country, it is up to the individual site. Before adding to a building with existing wiring, inspect that wiring to check which standard was used and use the same for any new wiring.

 

[George7941]

The modem and the booster are about 6 ft apart but on different floors. The patch cable is about 12 feet, so not very long.

 

[OVERKILL]

I was told that Canada uses the T568a standard. The way I wire them in the US is T568b. Any truth to that?

Nope.

 

[Donald]

I use CAT6 for everything.

 

[OVERKILL]

The cat 5 standard was only in force for a couple of years before being replaced with cat 5e. There is very little cat 5 (not e) cable out in the field. Most of the better manufacturers produced cat 5 cable of sufficient quality to meet 5e before it existed, so there's really no problem running gigabit over old cat 5 especially if the length is short.

The choice of a or b wiring is not required by a country, it is up to the individual site. Before adding to a building with existing wiring, inspect that wiring to check which standard was used and use the same for any new wiring.

Aye, but have you ever cracked a jack from a wall and discovered CAT3?

 

[tom slick]

as long as both ends match it doesn't really matter what wire goes in which spot but I use B.

 

[dogememe]

Always used B in every job and cable I've ever done.

Also put new ends on things using B without checking what they were on the other end and never had any issues.

You don't need crossover cables for anything anymore.

 

[eljefino]

Orangey, orange, greeney, blue, bluey, green, brownie, brown.

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

 

[wwillson]

Always used B in every job and cable I've ever done.

I have never made a "A" cable only "B"s

 

[OVERKILL]

I have never made a "A" cable only "B"s

I had to on one job because it was too much of a PITA to re-code the other end, lol.