10/100/1000 wiring question.

[Irish Shark]

Hi All,

I have a client that would like me to pre-wire a new warehouse. He wants to have a Gigabit network installed. Being that I am unsure of the correct cable needed for this.....I am posting here. There will be no fiber involved. So my thinking is that I can run the Cat5 wiring and then we just need to have the 10/100/1000 NIC's and Switch's. Am I on the right track here, or do I need different cable other than Cat5?

Thank-you in advance.

[confus-ed]

To get a gigabit you need optical, they get faster on atm switches with cable, but that has some damn fancy stuff in it ...

Cat 5 'normal' is good to 100, 5e 'special' 400.

Cat 6 400-550

Cat 7 600+

(all numbers dependant on who tests it but 'roughly' as different manufacturers make different claims)

& then you need an application to drive it that fast too put it this way there's a considerable cable/installation cost element if you want gigabit ! - most of my customers settle for cat 5e when I explain it 'properly to them '

[craigmodius]

I don't think you need optical for gigabit speeds. The gigabit standard is meant to work on existing cat5 cabling. Have a look at this paper on gigabit over copper.

Network managers and planners will be able to run 1000BASE-T over Category 5 cabling. The IEEE has
written the 1000BASE-T Standard for Gigabit Ethernet operation over the Category 5 cabling systems installed
according to the specifications of ANSI/TIA/EIA-568A (1995). Member companies of the GEA have demonstrated
1000BASE-T products operating on Category 5 cabling. There should be no need to replace existing
Category 5 cabling to use 1000BASE-T. The primary goal of the IEEE 1000BASE-T Task Force responsible for
the development of the 1000BASE-T standard was to support the legacy Category 5 cabling. According to the
industry experts that made up the IEEE 1000BASE-T Task Force, any link that is currently using 100BASE-TX
should easily support 1000BASE-T.

from here. If you want to do some window shopping look at the gigabit products that are out there now. If all new wiring was required to make them work they would not be so popular. However I have not setup gigabit speeds on my network, but I'm looking at accelerating a few key areas.

[confus-ed]

I don't think you need optical for gigabit speeds. The gigabit standard is meant to work on existing cat5 cabling... However I have not setup gigabit speeds on my network, but I'm looking at accelerating a few key areas.

No & you won't manage it with standard cat 5 either ! ... maybe cat 5E might be ok .

It all depends if you want 'flawless' or not so when you rate the cable do you rate it best or worst speed & over what length runs ? Talk to different folks you therefore get different answers..

[Radical Dreamer]

You can do gigabit over copper as we have, you get close to the 1000mbit mark, but not quite 1000, usually its more like 800

[FatalException0E]

To sum up the responses here:

For cost vs performance, run it with the best cable you can get (cat 6 or 7) and don't expect to get a full 1000 mbps.

Close enough?


By the way, you're talking about a warehouse. Those can get pretty big. Be sure you don't have cable running more than about 300 feet (just under 100 meters) and I wouldn't even go that far with gigabit.

[craigmodius]

No & you won't manage it with standard cat 5 either ! ... maybe cat 5E might be ok .

It all depends if you want 'flawless' or not so when you rate the cable do you rate it best or worst speed & over what length runs ? Talk to different folks you therefore get different answers..

Agreed, I would use cat6 or at least 5e. There's a good layout of the different standards here. And some good advice when they say...

If you're cabling a mission critical system or you want your network to be future proof, go for the CAT6 cables (and patch panels and connectors), but for the average home or small office network CAT5 or CAT5e will be just fine.

But does anyone ever do *anything* that's not "mission critical"