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Gigabit over Cat-5e 1

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Nov 27, 2003
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I know, I know, Cat-6 everywhere is the answer.

But...

Isn't Cat-5e rated for Gigabit?
 
Well, now Cat 6A is the answer, but Cat5e is rated for 1000baseT.

I tried to remain child-like, all I acheived was childish.
 
I'm typing this response on a gigabit connection. Cat5 cable from my Gb lan card to my little Gb switch to the Gb switch in the closet and down to the Gb switch in the server room. (Actually, that's fiber from the closet to the server room but there's patch panels in there somewhere and I know they are using cat5e patch cords). My file transfers between my computer and others on the gigabit switch indicate I'm getting Gb speeds. And when I hover over the network icon in my system tray it says "Local Area Connection, Speed: 1.0 Gbps, Status: Connected" It was kind of exciting the first time I saw that but now I just take it for granted like everything else. Wondering when the next big thing will come.

If I may add a question (as it relates to this topic), a co-worker insists that Gigabit requires use of all 4 pairs in the cable. I thought all current TCPIP connections only needed wires 1, 2, 3 and 6. He says Cisco said so. I say maybe for shielding but data is only on the same 2 pairs we been using for years. Is he semantically trying to trick me or have we undergone another evolution that nobdy told me about? Nobody ever tells me anything. except you guys.
 
Wondering when the next big thing will come"

SMC has a 10-gig switch out there...
 
See? You guys tell me the good stuff. That's just insane speed. But how long before we are sitting, staring and grumbling "hurry up you stupid slow 10gbps switch...can't you move that terabyte any faster?"

So what is gigabit doing? splitting data and pushing it up and down 2 new lanes on the previously unused pairs? and why wouldn't that only double 100Mb speeds?
Here's how it looks in my head - 10/100 = 4 lane highway - 2 lanes going and 2 lanes coming. Gig takes half the traffic and puts it on the 2 new coming and going lanes.

Is there a frequency increase in there as well?

Has to be - if all the cars keep going 55, doubling their lanes will get all the cars there in half the time. But if you double the lanes AND let everyone go faster, then you could get more cars down the road in the same amount of time.

Is that a reasonable, if simplistic, analogy?
 
Now that local speeds are finally up to snuff (which 15 years ago was believed to be achievable only with glass, never copper), we've gotta work on the telcos.

In today's WAN, it's the baby bells that choking our throughput. Go crazy with all your disposable income and buy a point-to-point DS3. And what does that buy you? Only 45 megabits per second, which is child's play for a 100M full dux NIC.

And with home networking, anything better than a 10M ethernet card is almost wasted (unless you're doing PC to PC file transfers). That's because even with cable modems, the best downlink speed you're gonna see is around 8M. Don't take me too seriously on these comments--I'm simply trying to make a point.

Anyway, hope IS around the corner. In SoCal, the LEC has been implementing fiber-to-the-home or fiber-to-the-neighborhood for almost every new housing development.

Hold on to your hat. Here it comes...
 
Verizon is also installing fiber to the home here in Texas. I think it started in Dallas.

 
Verizon has implemented FIOS in some towns in Eastern Massachusetts. Fiber is delivered direct to the customer prem.
 
How 'bout them Cowboys, Robertjo24? I'm jealous - you get to see al Cowboys games AND you get to have Pancho's Mexican Buffet. And I bet your Shiner Bock is cheaper than I can get it here in Orlando.

Funny that PAncho's is one of the things I miss the most about Dallas - even though there are tons of "real" Mexican restaurants there that I ought to miss more. But when I lived there I was a broke student and all you can eat Mexican for 3 bucks was a life saver.

Oh yeah, and now you can get Fiber to the curb too. You'd think Disney would demand similar treatment out here. Well, for all I know, WDW already does have fiber everywhere. They're probably hoarding it all. They need all the computing advantages they can get to keep Walt's frozen head alive underneath Cinderella's Castle.
 
I'm no expert but since having a 6 meg cable connection to my house, it seems to me that usually when downloading large files the bottleneck is elsewhere besides my 6 meg connection, and when doing general browsing the latency of the web is what slows you down the most. I suspect that if everyone had fiber to their home one of two things would happen: either everyone would have speeds only a little faster than now, or (more likely) the Internet would need a giant revamp because of immensely increased traffic. Remember that something like 50% of users are still on dial

Birken
 
You know this really makes no sense.

You have a 1,2 to 10 Gig backbone connected to a Gig Ethernet adaptor card on your PC that you and the rest of your place of business go out over (if your lucky) a 10 Meg pipe. Most of our small clinics are just using a T-1 to tie back to us which is only a 1.54 meg circuit and then leave over the same 10 meg to the internet.

We are opening up the bandwidth to the PC but still do not have the bandwidth to go out? Ok. You connect to a server within the LAN and "whoohoo" it's a smoking connection. But face it. The Internet is where everyone needs to go to and where the bottleneck lies.

I guess we are lucky in the respect that we have OC48 here for data and OC3 for voice. But we cant afford the buy the bandwidth (or really cant justify the cost for internet service). A 10 meg pipe is extremely pricy. We have about 5500 devices that are connected to the network that all leave here across a 10 meg link. Do you think we have connections problems?? Of course we do. But don’t blame it on my Cat 5E..Or maybe I should install Cat 6A so I can run into the bottleneck a little quicker??? When is it ever going to be enough., I mean come on.

This rant was sparked by our networking groups request for me to upgrade all our new cable installations to Cat 6. They dont know what Cat 6 is but they heard it will let them connect at 1 GPS.

Ok I feel better now. [cheers]

"You don't stop playing because you get old. You get old because you stopped playing."


 
I have Verizon Fiber in my house. It does my phone, TV and internet. I get 5mg down and 2mg up all the time. THat is the cheap package. I think you can 30/15. My cable guides come in at 30mg and so does pay=per view. I have had great luck with it so far.
 
You can use Cat 5 for your gigabit but use the big E cable.
For 10 gig you want to use the Cat 6 enhanced ,now being called the A.
As far as the fiber to your house,that is your ISP connection and you will have great speed no matter what you are using in your home because most homes do not have more than a couple of computers on the network and most homeowners can not afford a true gig switch,let alone a 10 gig set up either at their cpu or switch. You will never notice the difference at your monitor since the feed to your home is primarly aimed at download not send.
 
Okay, I'll bite.....

What is with the Big E vs Little e stuff? I have a friend that insists there is a difference yet I can find no documentation for this. Now I see it mentioned here!

BTW: I have a Gig connection running on Cat3 at 50meters. Up for more than a year, zero errors/drops/collisions ect. Go figure! For the record, it is the high quality IBM/Belkin Type 2A cable... that stuff is incredible.
 
Mikeydidit: That is as clear as mud, didn't see anywhere that there was a difference between "Cat5E" and "Cat5e"

Any else heard of this distinction?

 
I've heard people periodically talk about a distinction between "little e" and "big e". However, this is a case (pun) of shift key misuse and misinformation, not standards.

No one has offered you hard evidence to the contrary, because there is none. The TRUE "Cat" cable standards are defined by ANSI/TIA/EIA-568. And that organization recognizes Cat3, Cat5e and Cat6 ONLY. Category 6a (that's 6a OR 6A) has been drafted, but not officially approved yet. There is absolutely no distinction between Cat5e and Cat5E. Heck, I've never even seen a box of cable labeled with a capitol "E" suffix.

However, cable manufacturers do whatever they want. Sadly, those that listened to cable salesmen and not the standards organization have found themselves needing to replace the so-called Cat5 "standard" (it never was a standard) with Cat5e or Cat6 in their shops.
 
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