ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Voice - Data - Video Discussion cat5 or cat3

What is the advantages and disadvantages of having cat5 or cat3 in a residence?

Cat3 SHOULD work for MOST applications. Cat5 & Cat5e is what is currently available. If this a new install, I would go with 5e or install EMT/NMT for an easier upgrade path. If this is an existing installation, AND the wiring is in good shape AND the customer is only doing basic Ethernet use, Cat 3 will function.

I'm not sure how much future proofing you should be doing, because the future might be Wireless and all of the installed cable will be not used. If you are going to install network cabling, I would think that a power receptacle should be in the next stud bay over.

Larry C

I would not install CAT-3 for anything but POTS phones. The average homeowner LAN is pushing the original (published) CAT-5 limits at 100mz and if they buy a gigabyte LAN they have exceeded it. It might work but it is not supported.

My question should have been is what is cat5 good/needed for and what is cat3 good/needed for in a residence? English guys.

The cat(egory) refers to the data speed it can handle.
Cat 3 is overkill for phone at 16mz but if you have 2 lines you still need twisted pair so that is about as cheap as you can go. Cat 5 and cat 5e are for high speed data but that is becoming very common in houses so it is the defacto wire people install for everything. With the right terminations you can carry video, audio or just about any other kind of "data". Unless you do enough low voltage to carry a couple different spools of wire I think I agree, just use cat 5e for all your phone and data wiring.

I still don't think it is right for doorbells, garage door openers and thermostat wire (too small) but I see it.

For POTS wiring -- including DSL -- it doesn't need to be CAT-anything.

OK then Paul, how does that work for folks that may only want a VoIP phone in the future?
Not the POTS?

VoIP to what/where? If the line needs to be used to support a fast Ethernet connection back to a central PBX or router, then yes, CAT-x would be needed. If the line is still just providing the DSL connection for the VoIP interface at that point, then no.

I think the point is that Cat 5 wire is not that more expensive than bell wire. You money is in labor, particularly after the wall is closed up. Why wouldn't the customer want the best wire they can get?

I install Cat5e at a minimum - even if its only telephone. All too often the occupants want to redecorate, re-organize, or add another computer somewhere else in a few weeks or months. Then the couple runs you put in the first time can be re-used for 100Mbit ethernet.

I try to push for a central 'media panel' if at all possible. Makes subsequent work easier.

VOIP phones often have 10megabit interfaces on them. The reason why is so that they will work over Cat3 (or twisted pair that predates Cat3 but will still work with 10baseT such as AT&T DIW).

This is the biggest issue with Cat3, IMHO...non-managed switches and ethernet interfaces that autonegotiate to 100megabit. Cat3 works just fine if you manually set the port to work at 10megabit, but that isn't an option if you've connected two non-managed switches together. In that case they'll autonegotiate to 100megabit and this may or may not work over a cat3 link (will if it's short enough).


Otherwise..the average home user isn't going to notice a speed difference between 10megabit running on cat3 and 100megabit running on cat5 (or cat5e).

... until he starts transferring files, like doing network backups.

That's not the "average home user". The average home user has no clue that they need to do backups. (Hell, the average dedicated server customer I dealt with when I did that support didn't either. "Yes, sir, hard drives are mechanical devices and they do fail, that is why you had the option of purchasing our tape backup services or making arrangements for your own backups")

The average home user doesn't make use of file sharing very often. If they have a network it's to share the internet connection (and maybe a printer) with more than one PC and that's primarily it. For those uses one would be hard pressed to tell the difference between 10mb and 100mb.

I think that is "old thinking". Now that Microsoft is pushing media servers and people are using their network for more than just connecting the broadband and printer you are going to see more complaints about network speed.

Microsoft can push, will people buy, that is the question.

My impressions of what the average home user does with their PC are based on what I've seen. I'm excluding the computer types from that category of "average home user" because they are not. Heck, the average home user is likely to be still using dialup, either because high-speed is not available or because they aren't aware of the benefits or do not feel they are worth the extra cost.

How about the popularity of the low-speed, lost cost DSL/Cable tiers that run around $20/month with 768K down/256K up? I know several people who use those plans because they don't think that $50/month for higher speed access is worth it. I don't expect those people will be getting a media server anytime soon.

I think it is how we will watch TV pretty soon

I have enough trouble getting a couple of my business clients to realize that they need to make backups.

Well, now if you consider, for example, Comcast In Demand. Who said the media server needs to be on the customer's premises?

"Back up my hard drive? There's no reverse switch!"

I really believe we will be bypassing the networks and cable content providers and getting our content directly from the internet soon. When people get used to their DVR and understand these can be directly connected to an online program guide and online content the whole idea of TV schedules will go away. My ReplayTV (1999 technology) has the capability of sending and receiving content over the internet (one reason Sonic Blue was sued out of existence). All it will take is a content provider who wants to tap that market.
Some day soon there won't be "channels" or "time slots", only a catalog of shows.

I prefer not to install the bare minimum. Cat5e makes sense for me - that's what I use.

CAT5 is not necessarily wrong, it's just overkill. Same as running 6/3 Romex to a 20 amp receptacle. Just gross overkill that will likely never be necessary.

"I really believe we will be bypassing the networks and cable content providers and getting our content directly from the internet soon."

Problem is, there are still large parts of this country where there isn't anything but dialup. There is no DSL and there is no cable. There are still state (not my state but another state) and local government offices that dial in. Whenever they have dialin problems I look up the area code and prefix to see who it is and more often than not it's some telco I've never even heard of before. Probably same small hole-in-the wall operation still paying off RUS loans.

Not quite...have you ever tried to connect 6-gauge wire to a 20 amp receptacle?

CAT5 connects to RJ11 jacks just fine. (Well, after you untwist it)

"I really believe we will be bypassing the networks and cable content providers and getting our content directly from the internet soon."

Incidentally have you seen Fancast?

http://www.fancast.com

We're already there. you can already download every popular show directly to your computer, and every movie within days of its theatrical release- sometimes sooner. Last time I had a DVR recording error and missed a show, I went the next day downloaded the HDTV version off the web. Which kinda ticks me off since I have a giant HDTV but I don't have an HD version of that channel- so quality was better on the download than if I'd have watched it live. I know quite a few people (mostly college students) who don't even own a TV, yet watch every show, thanks to the internet.

Some networks are ahead of the curve- Cartoon Network has all their adult swim shows online, free for download with a single 30-second commercial for 15 minute shows and 2 for 30 minute. Even better still, the shows are up online 2 days before they air, and you can go back through and watch past episodes, too. Quality is excellent, too. I'd love if I could watch all my shows this way- it's like a DVR, but better

NASA TV streams shuttle launches, and quite a few other networks have their streams availible online, as well. Quality is lower than broadcast, but it's at least all realitime.

That fun ends when you get a "Notice of Copyright Infringement".

Well, that's only because the licensing hasn't caught up yet with the technology, and the studios aren't taking advantage of the market. My point was more that the distribution technology is already here, and already works, there's really no waiting or R&D required, it's ready for use. The fight between blu-ray and HD-DVD wasn't for dominance of the market, it was survival, period. Because if neither emerged as a clear victor, both would be surpassed by internet distribution. Their time is still limited, but blu-ray will at least be around the next few christmases.

The distribution technology relies on someone uploading as they simultaneously download.

This works because the incentive to upload is that you'll get a file for free.

Why on earth would I (or anyone else) use (actually I would say "waste") my upstream bandwidth so someone can *charge* me to download a file? Especially when it is almost certainly going to have limitations on how it can be used (perhaps it will expire, it can only be played on the machine where it was downloaded, etc.)

I'm not talking necessarily P2P filesharing here, just the distribution in general. Cartoon Network is streaming their shows from a central server at good speeds. NASA TV does the same. As do numerous other TV stations. There's no technical reason every network on cable can't put their full real-time feed on the internet with commercials, and reap the same profit they would as if it was broadcast over the air or through a cable or satellite TV provider.

As for potentially using P2P technologies for distribution; the incentive is faster downloads- a lot of game companies use this for large game demos; the download is much faster from bittorrent than it is from a traditional server, especially considering how overloaded those servers are the night of a big release. If you're downloading a 10GB blu-ray disk from Sony to your PS3 to watch on the day of the release, it's going to go a lot faster if you can download from 3 neighbors in your neighborhood than for each of you to download it individually from Sony's server, just because the pipe is faster between you.

"I'm not talking necessarily P2P filesharing here, just the distribution in general."

Yes, but when you stated that "you can already download every popular show directly to your computer, and every movie within days of its theatrical release- sometimes sooner." you should realize, and I did point out that, this is done with P2P.

One of the issues with P2P is that very often someone finishes downloading a file before they've uploaded as much as they've downloaded. So they should keep their bittorrent client "seeding" the file after they have downloaded, putting back what they've taken.

Some (perhaps many) people don't do this now, when the files are free. Start charging for files and try using P2P to distribute them and you'll find many more of your downloaders stopping their uploads as soon as they have the file.

This will continue to be a problem as long as connections are asymmetric, with higher download than upload speeds.