So i need a 14 foot long ethernet cable to connect an AP in my house. Naturally, i go for Cat5e, but at Fry's online, i can get a 14' long Cat6 cable for $7. Some of the text in the product description insinuates Ca6 cable cant be bent or kinked much, so i did 5 minutes worth of research and it seems that Cat6 cable should not be bent or else data is dropped and speed it lost... ive never heard of that problem with any ethernet cable, so is that true? I need to do some L shape turns with the cable while running it, so it will be bent. Is this problem really existent with Cat6... what about with Cat5e? Should i stick with Cat5e?
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Cant bend Cat6 cable?
- Thread starter DarkDubzs
- Start date
Each little imperfection along the way wont necessarily cause a connection to fail a test on its own. But each one eats into the limited Cat 6 headroom by a few points of a dB, and often more. It only takes an accumulation of these little things and the link becomes about as much use as an ashtray on a motorbike.
At DC and low frequencies, the current flows through a wire in the usual way. As the frequency gets higher (like the 33 MHz of 100BaseT) the wire starts to radiate or act like an arial and the current only flows in the skin of the wire. Some of the energy is actually travelling as radio waves along the length of the wire and we start to say hello to Mr Crosstalk and his rather unpleasant family..
At 75 Mhz, which is the frequency used for Gigabit Ethernet on UTP cable, more of the energy is on the outside and the potential for unwanted crosstalk increases.
Once we get to the 250 Mhz limit for Cat 6, the wire is going full-on ballistic and acts just like a wave-guide. Most of the electrical energy travels from one end to the other outside the conductor as electromagnetic energy. Also quite a lot of it travels within the plastic of the insulation, so the sheathings and ties are no longer just mechanical devices for protecting and holding the wires together, they are now an integral part of the dielectric of the cable. The sheath becomes a significant factor in the cables impedance make-up.
At these frequencies, any kinking, squashing, stretching or using it to strangle clients has a proportional effect on impedance and a consequent knock-on effect on transmission performance.
All that being said, 14 ft should not be a problem. This is very sensitive in multiple runs in data centers with 300 ft runs. We are talking about the limits of copper.
At DC and low frequencies, the current flows through a wire in the usual way. As the frequency gets higher (like the 33 MHz of 100BaseT) the wire starts to radiate or act like an arial and the current only flows in the skin of the wire. Some of the energy is actually travelling as radio waves along the length of the wire and we start to say hello to Mr Crosstalk and his rather unpleasant family..
At 75 Mhz, which is the frequency used for Gigabit Ethernet on UTP cable, more of the energy is on the outside and the potential for unwanted crosstalk increases.
Once we get to the 250 Mhz limit for Cat 6, the wire is going full-on ballistic and acts just like a wave-guide. Most of the electrical energy travels from one end to the other outside the conductor as electromagnetic energy. Also quite a lot of it travels within the plastic of the insulation, so the sheathings and ties are no longer just mechanical devices for protecting and holding the wires together, they are now an integral part of the dielectric of the cable. The sheath becomes a significant factor in the cables impedance make-up.
At these frequencies, any kinking, squashing, stretching or using it to strangle clients has a proportional effect on impedance and a consequent knock-on effect on transmission performance.
All that being said, 14 ft should not be a problem. This is very sensitive in multiple runs in data centers with 300 ft runs. We are talking about the limits of copper.
No cable is meant to be bent. Some are just more tolerable and less noticeable by the end-user when it is bent.
Stick with Phantum's advise and don't do 90 degree bends and you'll be fine. It's hard to screw it up with copper so long as you're not doing some ridiculous things with it (i.e. treating it like silly putty).
Stick with Phantum's advise and don't do 90 degree bends and you'll be fine. It's hard to screw it up with copper so long as you're not doing some ridiculous things with it (i.e. treating it like silly putty).