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Does it really make big diffrence between the types of cat 6 wires I select on internet speed?

I installed Chinese CAT 6 and the speed is 2.00Mbps. If I change the type of CAT6 will the internet speed jump to 6.00Mbps like the company say.

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  • 9 years ago

    I'm not sure exactly what you are getting at, if you have mixed up some terminology or if it is a typo. CAT6 is not a type of cable but rather a standard that has to be met by the cable. CAT5E cables are rated to 100Mbps (Mega bits per second - not to be confused with MB/s - Mega bytes per second) where as the CAT6 standard is capable of communicating at 1Gbps (Giga bits per second or 1000Mbps, hence the 10/100/1000). There are different types of cabling that can be used for both CAT5E and CAT6, you have STP (Shielded Twisted Pair), UTP (Unshielded Twisted Pair), and FTP (Foil-wrapped Twisted Pair). There are also CAT6 cables WITH the plastic spine separating the twisted pairs and CAT6 cables WITHOUT the spine. Most of these differences are more relevant only at longer distances or where interference (either EMI or RF) that may affect data transfer/loss/corruption. If you are using short runs (under 10 meters or 25-30 feet) then you should more than likely not notice any difference between any of the CAT6 cable types. More than likely the Chinese one was poorly made.

    Another thing to keep in mind is that patch cables are usually stranded copper cables where as ethernet cables meant for permenant installation like in-the-wall installs are usually solid copper wire. You may want to try using solid copper if speed is an issue for you.

    Keep in mind also that your speed is only as fast as the slowest device. The fastest residential internet speeds in the US are only 100Mbps so if you are looking to decrease load times for internet related data (loading webpages, ftp, etc) so long as your network passes traffic at 100Mbps or above you are fine.

  • Anonymous
    9 years ago

    No. Plain CAT5 cable would give you a comfortable 100 Mbps connection. Obviously any CAT5E or CAT6 will give more, up to 1Gbps. so any of these gives you far more than your service offers. But read the terms and conditions. When any company states a bandwidth they state UP TO. Depending on your distance from the exchange, and the state of your line this will always tend to be lower.

  • Anonymous
    9 years ago

    It shouldn't matter if you use CAT5 or CAT 6 for your internet, but using CAT6 does make your local network faster compared to CAT5 or CAT5e.

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