Ethernet Cable Upgrade

[Mas1985]

I have recently upgraded my Broadband to Gigafast (900). I want to move the position of my Router which means I need a longer ethernet cable to deal with the move.

Could someone please tell me the best category cable for my internet speeds?

Thanks

[cookiemonsteruk · Accepted solution]

@Mas1985 

The minimum would be cat 5e gigabit ethernet. Anything above would be more expensive and less flexible

[Mas1985]

@cookiemonsteruk Thanks for quick reply. I'll look into the cat 5e, but I suppose that any category above that would work just as good but as you say they are more expensive and a more thicker wire?

Thanks

[cookiemonsteruk]

@Mas1985 

I believe cat 7 hasn't been officially ratified and cat 8 is like wrapping a steel girder around a tree 😁 Certainly cat 5e will get your 900 Mbps to an etherneted device

[Mas1985]

@cookiemonsteruk 

The ethernet cable is actually from the Fibre box on my wall (it's probably got a fancy name I dont know) to connect it to my router...... maybe that changes things a bit as I dont want it losing speed through the wrong cable.

[cookiemonsteruk]

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@Mas1985 wrote:

@cookiemonsteruk 

The ethernet cable is actually from the Fibre box on my wall (it's probably got a fancy name I dont know) to connect it to my router...... maybe that changes things a bit as I dont want it losing speed through the wrong cable.

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Thats the optical network terminal (ont) and it would be the same from ont to hub as it would be hub to device.  They should be able to maintain gigabit speed over 100 metres

[Mas1985]

@cookiemonsteruk 

perfect thanks. Will see what Amazon have 🙂

Thanks again.

[Skull+Treaty]

@Mas1985 , @cookiemonsteruk is correct;  IEEE standard Cat cables are 5e, 6, 6A & 8. Cat5e will be more than enough for your needs. Cat8 would be ideal for data centres & the like. It is much less flexible, I rewired my house the other week and got quite warm in doing so. I only used Cat8 as I 'borrowed' it from work 😉 

[Mintylid]

My sky hub has one (7 year old) Cat 5, 15m cable going to a switch downstairs, another to a switch upstairs for my essential cabled devices in the two parts of the house with equipment.

I've recently had performance issues with the devices downstairs, so upgraded that switch, still getting buffering on streaming services, LAN warnings on console, worth upgrade the long cable to a cat 7 from the hub?

[jamesn123]

@Mintylid 

Cat 7 is overkill. Cat5e or Cat6 is plenty.