I'm just about to move house, and I currently have about 5 computers and laptops. I don't know what currently is the best choice for CAT cables, so I guess I need help with that. Plus, if there are any tips you guys have on setting up a fast/decent network then please tell me And also my internet really isn't going to be very fast out in the country, according to BT it's 0.5mb/s which is kinda low. So i'm just wondering if anyone else have these kind of speeds and what is their net actually like? Thanks.
Ahaha. I have that internet speed. ಠ_ಠ It is hell. Do not get. Gaming is fine if you play TF2 and the like, but anything that requires HUEG data is a no-go. And by HUEG I mean pretty much any game ever. Youtube? Prepare to experience a lot of pausing at 360p. Torrents? (Legal ones, obviously.) You are looking at about 4 and a half hours for a 700MB file.
Oh the good old days of 512k, it used to take all week to download a film (Legal ones, obviously.) Can you not get Sky broadband? BT sucks big time!
If he can only get 512k from BT, he'll only get the same from Sky since it's BT's line that sky (and any other ADSL broadband reseller for that matter) use. What's limiting his speed is his distance from the exchange. To only get 0.5Mbit, Im guessing hes around 6km away. I had it for a couple of years at my previous post. It was SHOCKING to say the least. Not only was it slow, its usually unstable at that distance from the exchange.
All this. We are about 6km from two exchanges. Our line is capable of up to 2mb, but it's so unstable that AOL / BT capped it.
It's going to be a nightmare, it's about 6km you're right...but it's a huge change seen as though right now i'm living next door to the exchange and I get both great reliability and speed. I'll just have to download everything I am ever going to need before I move, that'll save me spending weeks downloading things
To answer one of your original questions; CAT 5e or CAT 6 is the way to go. Both will handle 1Gb/s connections. I believe CAT 6 is more expensive because it is shielded. Setting up a decent network hinges on getting a decent router and a decent switch (I'm not a fan of all-in-one solutions personally but there are some good ones out there. Some people with more experience buying network gear than me would be better to recommend what constitutes 'decent'
Cat6 is approx 12 times less noisy than 5e and should give you a zippier network with less packet loss.
CAT6 is more expensive, but not because it's shielded. As a matter of fact, the category and shielding are two different things. Don't get UTP as it's not shielded at all. Get FTP or SFTP. SFTP will be a bit (well, maybe more that a bit) more expensive than FTP and more rigid (a tad thicker too) but it's shielding is better. For a domestic environment FTP should suffice. Go for CAT6 FTP, or CAT5e FTP if CAT6 turns out to be too expensive. Also, post your choices in equipment so we'll have something to start from when offering suggestions.
Cat5 will do you fine tbh. I'd look into what mobile signals are like where you will be and try mobile internet over the weak ADSL.
+REP for that suggestion. There's some great 'unlimited' deals over 3G at the moment for less than you'd pay for line rental and 'narrow'band.
Except of course that even in a town centre where signal is great, 3G broadband is still useless for any kind of gaming, and downloads are ridiculously capped. My friend uses a Vodafone dongle and there's a mast near where he lives, and he's quite often getting lag and dropping out. If however gaming isn't a primary concern, then the download SPEED itself would more than likely be competitive. Draytek Vigor routers support dual-WAN, including 3G modems, which may be a good way of sharing the access. Sorry but - are you serious?? There's no packet loss on CAT5e UTP. As long as you don't twist it around and around power cables to create attenuation, but that'd be asking for trouble!! Just keep it in a seperate channel a couple centimetres away and there's no issue. Also, to the guy who suggested it, CAT6 FTP? Made of money or what?! Just buy CAT5e UTP. The most expensive part of full-rated CAT6 is usually the connector, or rather the time it takes to fit the connector to the standard and test it, so I guess you could use the cable but just use CAT5e boots. As most home broadband equipment is still 100mb there's not even a huge need to run the CAT5e at gigabit speeds, although it'll be capable of it. Seriously, even in cabling a datacentre up, something I did not just a couple of weeks ago, CAT5e UTP does the job well!! Don't waste the extra money dude.
Thanks a lot for your advice guys, you've helped a lot. I'll be buying everything as soon as i've moved in tomorrow
Might sound daft, but what are Virgin like in your area? I know they're moronic losers who take your money and run (as they did to me - £25 deposit I'll never see again for an area they don't provide to), but if you can get the service, might be worth a punt. Distance from a city isn't a factor, either. I'm smack-bang in Sunderland centre, 30 seconds walk from the uni and student halls, and they don't have any infrastructure.
Totally agree. Used it for years with various jobs in my old work as telecoms and my both my old house and my current work/flat have been wired with 5e and gigabit switches, perfectly quick. Cat 6 is actually harder to use as well because it's stiffer and doesn't like corners....
still use cat5 for everything we do. data cabling, IP cameras, power or video signal. its cheap and well in excess of what you will ever need.
I suggest before you start taking the p**s out of people, you actually read up first. It's even more shocking that, by the looks of things, you do cabling for a living!!! Try google search "cat6 less noisy" and see what you get... Top link: http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1267815&page=11 but there's plenty more than that....
I don't know how much it costs where he shops. I did say "Go for CAT6 FTP, or CAT5e FTP if CAT6 turns out to be too expensive.". For most things CAT5e FTP will be more than enough, and where I live (pretty far from you to be honest) it's only 20% more expensive than CAT5e UTP, so it's very well worth it, as you're not going to use many kilometers of it. In fact, I would even go so far as to recommend CAT5e FTP over CAT6 UTP. (can you say extension power cords tangled with ethernet patch cords, vacuum cleaner, drilling machine, hair dryer, hell anything with a powerful electric motor - btw, electric motors with brushes rock an unshielded and ungrounded network!, kids' electric toy train with it's big transformer, electric heater, electric and microwave ovens, need more?) *Ahem* (clears voice), yes there is attenuation, and there are interferences on UTP cables, and as far as I know, cabling twisted pair parallel to power lines is supposed to be done no closer than 60 cm one from the other. And that's for the CAT5 certification! Don't know the exact distance for CAT6 though. It's true that even if you don't respect these rules, you plug in the cables, ethernet link does come up and you can transfer data through, so it apparently "does the job well". Hmm.. does it really? Yes, the routers, gateways and modems are mostly 100mbit devices, but almost all PCs and laptops nowadays have gigabit interfaces. And so do the NAS-es. As he did mention he has 5 computers, the need for a faster than 100mbit network is present. Digital entertainment over the years has gone only in one direction in terms of storage space: big, bigger, huge, enormous. (divx -> dvd -> hd -> blu-ray -> OMFG!) Can you guess what the future will bring? Conclusion: Gener8, cable your house properly now! It will be a hundred times more difficult to do later, when it's full of stuff and there may be others living in it too.
