Can ethernet cables made 10 years ago take advantage of Thunderbolt Gigabit Ethernet Adapter?

[hajime]

Hi, I need to set up a Gigabit ethernet connection to connect some devices in my room. Are those ethernet cables made 10 years ago able to take advantage of Thunderbolt Gigabit Ethernet Adapter for the MBP 16"? If I want full speed connection, do I need to get more recently made cables that take advantage of the Gigabit connection? Are Cat6/Cat7 the fastest cables to go for?

 

[DeltaMac]

You can tell by the marking on the cable. If you already have Cat5e or higher, you will be fine on gigabit ethernet.
If your cables are from only 10 years ago, Cat5 was superceded by Cat5e since 2001 (so you might already be good with Cat5e), but even if you have Cat5 cable, that might still meet Cat5e specs, and be OK for your use on a gigagit network.

Cat5 = might be OK
Cat5e and higher = good
If you need to buy new, get Cat6 or higher.

 

[throAU]

It depends on the spec, but yes - gigabit has been around for (far) more than 10 years.

Gigabit "needs" Cat5e or better. But that spec is for gigabit over a total 100m of cable, including 2x5m patch leads (i.e., 4 plugs - all that causes loss) and 90m of structured cabling inside a building.

In my experience (i'm a long time network administrator) chances are any cable you might use at home will be fine - because you simply aren't dealing with 100m run lengths. So long as it isn't physically damaged. Broken clip - toss cable. Kink - toss cable. Be brutal. Be more worried about defects than spec.

You really don't need cat6 or better unless you want 10 gig (and i haven't tried it but i'd wager even 10 gig would work over cat5 in the sort of cable lengths home users will have).

Obviously if a cable is physically damaged it doesn't matter what spec it originally was - but i have and have used cables from the early 00s just fine.

I'd argue to not get cat6 if you don't need it - the cables are thicker, less flexible, have more stringent bend radius constraints, etc. You're just throwing money away and getting cables that are less convenient to use.

If you're getting your house wired up, use cat6 for structured (in building) cabling of course, but don't bother for fly leads. Cat7 is even worse due to the integrated shielding.

Gigabit is nothing special these days, especially in a home environment cat5e (and most likely even cables only rated for cat5) will be fine. Because you don't have 90+ metres of structured cabling you are plugging into.

Youre not magically going to get better performance out of cat6 at home just because its cat6. But you will get the drawbacks.

 

[Juicy Box]

I agree with what everyone else said, but will add that you should check the old cable for how many pairs are present.

I have seen a few Ethernet cables that looked like normal Cat5e cables with RJ45 fittings on them, but with closer examination there were only 2 pairs in them. This will cause them to drop to a lower connection speed like 100Mbps or 10Mbps.

It might be rare to find these cable, but I have seen more than one.

I suspect they were purposely manufactured this way to cut costs. They were shipped with equipment that wouldn't benefit from Gigabit speeds, so the manufacturer just made a cable with the bare minimum specs to support the equipment they were selling.

 

[hajime]

I cannot find the cable so I have to buy new anyway. Does the length matter in terms of speed and reliability? What brand and length do you recommend?

 

[Juicy Box]

Does the length matter in terms of speed and reliability?

For short distances, no.

For distances greater than 300ft, then yeah. At longer lengths, there could be attenuation, speed drops, packet loss, interference, or connection failures.

Single 300ft+ runs could work fine for you, but you would be at a higher risk of issues with those greater lengths.

What brand and length do you recommend?

For shorter lengths, brand probably isn't important.

As for the recommended length, the easiest solution is just getting the length that you need.

As for the category of cable that I personally would use, it would depend on what I am trying to achieve, such as a particular connection speed, and the length I need.

If I just need a 1000Mbps connection and I need to go long distances, I would probably just get a Cat5e.

If I just need a 1000Mbps connection and I need to go short distances, I would probably spend the extra money and get Cat6.

If I needed a higher than 1000Mbps connection, then I would go with Cat6, although, I think that at short distances, Cat5e cables might work at 10Gbps connections.

 

[hajime]

At the beginning, I plan to connect two computers (one headless) together via VNC. Later, I may add NAS. About 200cm is enough for me.

 

[hobowankenobi]

If you are buying new go CAT 6 or better. Monoprice cables are a great value. All colors and lengths.

 

[TiggrToo]

Hi, I need to set up a Gigabit ethernet connection to connect some devices in my room. Are those ethernet cables made 10 years ago able to take advantage of Thunderbolt Gigabit Ethernet Adapter for the MBP 16"? If I want full speed connection, do I need to get more recently made cables that take advantage of the Gigabit connection? Are Cat6/Cat7 the fastest cables to go for?

Wired my house up with 5e when we brought it 20 years odd ago. I'll be good for a few more years yet, at which time we'll either move, or wireless tech will overcome the need for it.

 

[rylim]

Actually I'm also looking for advice in wiring up my house, should I stay with CAT 6 or fiber optic for the sake of future proof?

 

[hobowankenobi]

Actually I'm also looking for advice in wiring up my house, should I stay with CAT 6 or fiber optic for the sake of future proof?

Unless there is new tech out there, terminating fiber optic involves welding glass. Not done that I am aware of for internal residential/SMB. Way, way too expensive. Let's see if others know better.

Best you could do would be CAT 8. That could very well be overkill. Pricey compared to CAT 6.

...And, in the future, nearly everything could be wireless. Hard to predict.

 

[konqerror]

Unless there is new tech out there, terminating fiber optic involves welding glass. Not done that I am aware of for internal residential/SMB. Way, way too expensive. Let's see if others know better.

The equipment is not practical to buy yourself (~$5-10k) but if you know how to do it, it takes a few minutes max. They do this all the time for FTTH installs. It is welding glass, but there's a briefcase sized machine that does it pretty much automatically.

I don't know how much somebody would charge you to come out, I've done it in the lab and also sent stuff away for termination at a service. I seem to recall our guy charges $30 to terminate both ends of a cable, which is actually harder than splicing on a pigtail like you'd do in the field.

If you really wanted to do it yourself, you can buy long patch cables and leave the excess lying around or carefully measure and get pre-terminated cables made.

 

[throAU]

Actually I'm also looking for advice in wiring up my house, should I stay with CAT 6 or fiber optic for the sake of future proof?

Cat6 should be fine. Fibre will just make things more expensive in terms of the optics you need to plug into it, the fly leads, etc.

For the short distances involved in most homes, any cat5+ cable will probably be fine for gigabit or even 10 gig most likely - the official specs are for 100M runs, and most houses simply aren't dealing with those lengths.

You can also get pre-terminated fibre as well, but seriously, the home world is going wireless via tablets, laptops, etc. I would wager that by the time you need 10 gig throughout your house or more, there will be high enough speed wireless to cover it, or streaming from something central will be the way to do it.

Most end users simply won't need more than 1-10 gigabit to end devices IMHO. At least not within the next 10 years. Even 4k streaming is much less than than even 100 megabit.

 

[hobowankenobi]

The equipment is not practical to buy yourself (~$5-10k) but if you know how to do it, it takes a few minutes max. They do this all the time for FTTH installs. It is welding glass, but there's a briefcase sized machine that does it pretty much automatically.

I don't know how much somebody would charge you to come out, I've done it in the lab and also sent stuff away for termination at a service. I seem to recall our guy charges $30 to terminate both ends of a cable, which is actually harder than splicing on a pigtail like you'd do in the field.

If you really wanted to do it yourself, you can buy long patch cables and leave the excess lying around or carefully measure and get pre-terminated cables made.

Good to know. I remember when the termination device was closer to $50,000. That made for quite expensive installation rates.

 

[biffuz]

I had my house cabled with cat6 10 years ago, to future proofing. From the walls is almost all cat5e, I threw away all older cables, and I hardly bought any new cable since then. No problem with gigabit whatsoever.
When I'll update to 10G I'll need a new network card for the PC, an adapter for the MB, a new NAS and a switch, but at least the cables in the walls will be fine... but I'll probably move before all that

 

[throAU]

I had my house cabled with cat6 10 years ago, to future proofing. From the walls is almost all cat5e, I threw away all older cables, and I hardly bought any new cable since then. No problem with gigabit whatsoever.
When I'll update to 10G I'll need a new network card for the PC, an adapter for the MB, a new NAS and a switch, but at least the cables in the walls will be fine... but I'll probably move before all that

I really think that cat6 in walls will be all you ever need for home.

10G to the desktop has been a long time coming and 2.5 G is more common for desktops. the simple fact is that almost no one does anything on a desktop computer that justifies that much bandwidth in a home environment, apart from occasional file copies to a NAS, and the people doing that are dropping in quantity - most of THOSE (outside of enterprise users) will connect storage locally via direct attachment.

Even 99% of users in a corporate/office environment don't do anything that needs 10G.

If I look at my switch uplinks at work for example (head office for a 1+ billion dollar company) - each switch has 100+ users connected to it and the average traffic from these switches to the core switch (which is via teamed 10G ports) where the servers and internet uplink is - is under 1 gigabit typically. Actually I just checked, even from the switch the IT are connected to (who are occasionally doing PC imaging, etc.), the largest 15 minute average over the past week has been 150 Megabit.

In my view (as a network admin of 15+ years), until people have 10+ gigabit internet uplink at home, there's basically almost zero legitimate need for 99% of people to have 10G wall outlets. And by the time we have 10 gig plus internet at home, I will bet that there will be hardware that can do > 10G over cat6 cables.


Don't get me wrong, 10G is cool and I want it at home... but in terms of legitimate use case... its simply not justifiable for some time yet.

(yes, nerds like me who do home lab stuff for work being exceptions, but even then you only need 10G within your home lab really).

 

[hobowankenobi]

Agreed. As of now—and foreseeable future—only folks shoveling large amounts of local data (think 4K+ video editing, etc.) could really justify 10G in a home. So much is wifi now, hard to imagine that trend reversing. One could argue that wifi6, and whatever is next (wifi7), will be more likely to progress at least in the residential space.

 

[Juicy Box]

Actually I'm also looking for advice in wiring up my house, should I stay with CAT 6 or fiber optic for the sake of future proof?

Assuming you are talking about a whole house wiring, I would go with CAT6 or CAT7. I wouldn't do fiber.

Fiber is not common on most devices and requires adapters, while CAT6 and CAT7 are backwards compatible with older standards.

PoE or Power over Ethernet might be a reason to stick with copper over fiber.

Between CAT6 or CAT7, I would go for the CAT7. CAT7 is going to cost a little more, but it works better than CAT6 at longer distances, and it has a longer life expectancy.

for the sake of future proof

This is kind of hard to say. Future proof is not only technology/capability, but also longevity.

I am unsure about the life cycle of fiber, but copper has a life cycle of about 10-20 years before it starts to degrade. CAT6 is about 10 years, while CAT7 is about 15 years.

I remember in the 2000's that CAT6 was pushed over CAT5e for new home wiring for the sake of future proofing. But, here we are almost two decades later and most wired devices still don't take advantage of the higher capabilities of CAT6.

Based off of the typical life cycle of CAT6, there might be a degradation of the copper in those 2000's homes that were future-proofed. The Life expectancy of CAT5e is actually much longer than CAT6, so if those homes were wired with CAT5e instead, they would have probably lasted longer before problems.

CAT7 is made more robust with better construction so it will take longer to degrade, about the same as CAT5e.

Another note on copper degradation, I still use CAT5e cables that are over 20 years old, and have not noticed a problem with it, so just because it starts to degrade, doesn't mean that it will definitely be an issue.

 

[hobowankenobi]

Good info here about cabling specs.

Looks like CAT 6A might be the best cost/performance trade-off that should be fairly future resistant.

Degradation...I can't say. I work in a large building that probabably has 20+ year old CAT 5 (not CAT 5e), and we don't see any issues. I would not expect copper to degrade, outside of oxidizing...if exposed. But unless there is poor termination, I would not expect that to be a problem.

 

[biffuz]

When I renovated the house 10 years ago I used cat6 because we were well into the gigabit era, and we were expecting to move to higher speeds pretty soon. 2.5G and 5G were starting to appear on the shelves. But it didn't happen. PCs are still shipped with 1G ports by default. 2.5G and 5G are nowhere to be found, and 10G equipment is still pretty expensive. Also, a good PC from back then is still a good PC today.
The industry has focused so much on mobile they forgot to take care of the desktop, and now they wonder why people doesn't buy new stuff.

 

[4sallypat]

I just ran 2 CAT6 cables thru the roof for my sons' game boxes.
Toughest part was terminating at the room and router - had to use biscuits instead of the usual patch panel I normally do at work...

100' and runs a full gigabit provided from the ISP.

Both teen boys are very happy!

 

[mzeb]

My house has two separate networks of cat 5e totally about 200m of cable each. They were put in when the house was built 14 years ago. No issues at gigabit speeds. A head's up: one of the two networks was actually run for the phone jacks. Most newer houses actually use cat5e for wiring the phone network in the house because ethernet cable is so heavily manufactured vs. the old 4 wire phone cable it is actually cheaper despite having twice as many wires. If your home is newer you may actually have cat5e in the walls.