Very quick question about cat 5e vs cat 6 mhz/speed

[Rijsberman]

Hi guys!

 

Question, I probably have 10 y old Cat 5e cables in my house, going from the router to my room. I have 100mb / 100mb glassfibre subscription in my home now. Coming week it will be upgraded to 1000/mb down, 1000/mb up. Do I need to replace the cable to Cat 6? I know 5e can handle 1 gbt. But it also see something about cat 5e having 100mhz and cat 6 250 mhz. Does that matter????

 

It will be quite a hassle to replace the cable so im curious what i gain with that mhz difference.  It is my moms house in which I live, so '''''futureproofing'''' for 10gbit is not something that she needs.

 

Kind regards,

Jim

[Kilrah]

If you already get a gigabit link through those cables which you should there's nothing to do.

[Dutch_Master]

In your particular case, don't bother upgrading the wiring. Cat 5e will suffice as you probably won't get the advertised 1Gb/s speed anyway (ISP's rarely deliver what they promise!) so provided all wires are still functioning as they should, you won't have to put a penny in.

[Rijsberman]

Thanks guys! So Mhz does not matter  . @Dutch_Master given u also seem to live in the Netherlands. Im getting 95/95 currently throught tmobile thuis. So at the 1000 mb connection im gonna get, will i be getting like 950 ish? or more like 800? 

 

I will have to upgrade my splitter I think, VERY hype to finally get this

[Dutch_Master]

@Rijsberman: I'm not on fibre, still on VDSL regrettably, so I can't tell you. Yet. As soon as my provider (XS4ALL) offers it in my region I'll get it ASAP. Unfortunately, due to home ownership in my city and the associated permission issues, getting fibre is going to be a royal PITA and unlikely to happen anytime soon

[Rijsberman]

Ah that is unfortunate! I live in t Gooi, so like everything is very well up to date around here. We have had it for about 6-8 years I believe now? Quite a long time.

 

And what do u guys think about this vid? Wont changing these settings /dns in the router give u any trouble with like smart home appliances and stuff? Or should I do this when I receive my new router setup?

 

[Dutch_Master]

Given your proximity to one of the biggest internet hubs on this planet (AMX) I doubt changing your DNS and/or default settings would actually increase your speed. If anything, you could be penalised by your ISP for doing so, with lower speeds or outright throttling of your connection to a crawl. So be very careful/considerate about that and ask your ISP what they'd allow you to do. (running a home server is not exactly endorsed by all ISPs on the Dutch market! Mine does, but it's rather the proverbial exception then any standard practice)

[Dujith]

20 minutes ago, Rijsberman said:

And what do u guys think about this vid?

Its clickbait. And DNS doesnt do that much speedwise. Tho i would always bypass the ISP DNS server and use google

or something else on a home network.

The speedgain he gets there is just picking a Wifi frequentie range which isnt that polluted by others (like neighbors and such).

 

Simplest way of explaining that would be riding in heavy traffic vs having the freeway for yourself.

[paddy-stone]

There's no harm in trying a different public DNS setting, if it's worse than the ISP one I would be surprised though.... if it is, just change it to another, or back to the ISP one. I usually use either google, 1111, openDNS as the provider for mine, depending on what device it's going on.

 

Here's a link to some public dns servers you can try if you want  https://www.lifewire.com/free-and-public-dns-servers-2626062

[Rijsberman]

I didnt know we had it so great in Amsterdam  But I see, so what I SHOULD do perhaps to start with is then only change the wifi frequency? Thats a good thing to do?? Or can that also bring adverse effects on devices?

[Kilrah]

Changing wifi frequency is only good if yours is currently overlapping with other devices. But it's good to check.

[BlackManINC]

@Rijsberman  If you insist on changing to a Cat 6 cable, it would be for the added protection it provides from electromagnetic interference. You might not get 2 or 10 gigabit speeds if your NIC and modem/router can't get it, but the speed you do get will be more consistent with the possibility of any packet loss or network dropouts being far less likely. This is the main reason why I upgraded to a Cat 6a cable, for the protection from EMI more than anything. Cat5E cables really doesn't provide any real protection at all, and that's its main downside. 

[Alex Atkin UK]

5 hours ago, BlackManINC said:

@Rijsberman  If you insist on changing to a Cat 6 cable, it would be for the added protection it provides from electromagnetic interference. You might not get 2 or 10 gigabit speeds if your NIC and modem/router can't get it, but the speed you do get will be more consistent with the possibility of any packet loss or network dropouts being far less likely. This is the main reason why I upgraded to a Cat 6a cable, for the protection from EMI more than anything. Cat5E cables really doesn't provide any real protection at all, and that's its main downside. 

AFAIK it only gives you added protection if both ends are grounded, which in general routers are not.

[Rijsberman]

Thanks for all the replies guys  And since changing is a real big hassle, I won't be doing that. Since with the 100mbps im not noticing any packet loss or whatsoever. Wont be any problems upgrading. The cable goes into a tube which runs through the house but that cable is basically jammed. So going to Cat6 would mean a shitty process.

Il stick to  the 5e if theres no real downsides for my 1000mbs incoming 

[BlackManINC]

56 minutes ago, Rijsberman said:

Thanks for all the replies guys  And since changing is a real big hassle, I won't be doing that. Since with the 100mbps im not noticing any packet loss or whatsoever. Wont be any problems upgrading. The cable goes into a tube which runs through the house but that cable is basically jammed. So going to Cat6 would mean a shitty process.

Il stick to  the 5e if theres no real downsides for my 1000mbs incoming 

How far is this cable supposed to go? 

[Rijsberman]

On 8/2/2020 at 7:38 PM, BlackManINC said:

How far is this cable supposed to go? 

I think the cable length is around 15-20 meters

[BlackManINC]

1 minute ago, Rijsberman said:

I think the cable length is around 15-20 meters

Yeah, I personally wouldn't get anything lower than a Cat 6 cable for any distance beyond ten feet, if not even a Cat 6A cable, especially if it has to go through walls and ceilings. 

 

Link: Cat6

 

Link: Cat6A

[Rijsberman]

1 minute ago, BlackManINC said:

Yeah, I personally wouldn't get anything lower than a Cat 6 cable for any distance beyond ten feet, if not even a Cat 6A cable, especially if it has to go through walls and ceilings. 

 

Link: Cat6

 

Link: Cat6A

Problem that it is a HUGE struggle to get the current 5e cable out. Still didnt receive my new modem/router, but when I do and I can test it, if I have over 500 mb download and 6 ping or better, no need to replace right? As said before, it is my mom's home so when I leave this house in like 1-2 years they dont need anything crazy.

[BlackManINC]

4 minutes ago, Rijsberman said:

Problem that it is a HUGE struggle to get the current 5e cable out. Still didnt receive my new modem/router, but when I do and I can test it, if I have over 500 mb download and 6 ping or better, no need to replace right? As said before, it is my mom's home so when I leave this house in like 1-2 years they dont need anything crazy.

 I mean, no, you don't necessarily have to replace it as long as you are happy with the connection speeds you are getting, although cables do degrade overtime. 

[Rijsberman]

Just now, BlackManINC said:

 I mean, no, you don't necessarily have to replace it, as long as you are happy with the connection speeds you are getting, although cables do degrade overtime. 

I'll see if I get like over 700 mbs down, if not then im gonna be salty :D. But then first I guess I'll have to attach a small cat 6a to my moms laptop to check if it is even sending over the full 1000?? HOPING my moms laptop has a gigabit connection lol

[BlackManINC]

11 minutes ago, Rijsberman said:

I'll see if I get like over 700 mbs down, if not then im gonna be salty :D. But then first I guess I'll have to attach a small cat 6a to my moms laptop to check if it is even sending over the full 1000?? HOPING my moms laptop has a gigabit connection lol

It still depends on the throughput you're actually paying for though. It won't matter that much anyway if 500mbps is your fee. If you have a good connection, you might get a little bit higher, but I wouldn't be surprised if ends up even less than 500mbps because it also has to account for the overhead of the networks infrastructure. It would end up being more like 450 mbps. I'm paying for 300 mbps, and my actual speed is 360 mbps with an Ethernet connection, so it is possible. 

[Rijsberman]

2 minutes ago, BlackManINC said:

It still depends on the throughput you're actually paying for though. It won't matter that much anyway if 500mbps is your fee. If you have a good connection, you might get a little bit higher, but I wouldn't be surprised if ends up even less than 500mbps because it also has to account for the overhead of the networks infrastructure. It would end up being more like 450 mbps. 

We are going to pay for 1000mb/s up, 1000mb/s down. So I guess the same rule applies there hm, more like 900 mbps

[BlackManINC]

1 minute ago, Rijsberman said:

We are going to pay for 1000mb/s up, 1000mb/s down. So I guess the same rule applies there hm, more like 900 mbps

Yeah, it might end up being more like 900-950 mbps due to overhead. 

[Rijsberman]

5 minutes ago, BlackManINC said:

Yeah, it might end up being more like 900-950 mbps due to overhead. 

Well I'm going to update this thread with a speedtest soon. Will be fun downloading my 4k 50gb movies which do not take hours anymore

[Rijsberman]

 

We innit bois!