Cat.5 vs. Cat.6 Installs

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stevebea

stevebea

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Southeastern PA
To the forum members that do data cabling I would be interested in knowing what percentage of your installs are Cat.6. We are primarily an electrical contracting firm but we will do data cabling at the customers request. By far (95%) of our installs are Cat.5. Most of our data jobs are are 48 cables or less, but to the guy's that are doing the bigger jobs does the same hold true that most of your work is Cat.5?
 
I go by spec if there is one. My house ran cat 6 just because everything keeps changing and maybe it will be 10 years instead of 5 before its out of date, and thats what I try to explain to customers. A lot of the commercial jobs seem to be calling for cat5e for voice and cat6 or cat6a for the data.
 
its extremely rare for us to have a commercial job that spec's cat6 data.

only thing i've really used cat6 for is video distribution, converting hdmi-to-cat6 for long runs.
 
LLSolutions said:
I go by spec if there is one. My house ran cat 6 just because everything keeps changing and maybe it will be 10 years instead of 5 before its out of date, and thats what I try to explain to customers. A lot of the commercial jobs seem to be calling for cat5e for voice and cat6 or cat6a for the data.
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My take in CAT6 is that whoever specs it just does it because it's the latest, not because there is any need for it. I predict within 10 years they won't even be using copper. It will be fiber or wireless so what good will the added expense of CAT6 do when CAT5e will get you there just fine?

-Hal
 
hbiss said:
My take in CAT6 is that whoever specs it just does it because it's the latest, not because there is any need for it. I predict within 10 years they won't even be using copper. It will be fiber or wireless so what good will the added expense of CAT6 do when CAT5e will get you there just fine?

-Hal
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A century and a half of experience with copper communications cabling gives most users a familiarity with copper that makes them skeptical of any other medium, and in many cases copper has proven to be a valid choice. I feel that there will be a place for copper for a long time, particulary for premise wiring. That said, I realize that teleco is fiber except for final connection to house. CATV has a fiber backbone, the internet is all fiber, and most cell towers have fiber connections. As far as wireless, I understand too that people more and more have the need to be wireless whether its a laptop, smartphone, PDA, tablet PC, etc. What will things be like in 10 years? I dont know but its fun to speculate.:grin:
 
A century and a half of experience with copper communications cabling gives most users a familiarity with copper that makes them skeptical of any other medium...

Hmmm, you sound like the companies who make the cable and keep coming up with ways to sell new products and stay in business. Funny how they always come out with a new higher speed cable before there is any equipment to interface with it. One would think it would be the other way around with the hardware manufacturers driving the technology. It's the cable manufacturers that are keeping copper alive way past its lifetime and the ROI is becomming smaller and smaller.

I predict that CAT6 or 6a is going to be the last gasp for copper. The CAT7 that is on the horizon is so unweildy and the connectors so radically different that it just makes no sense labor wise and cost wise to use it over fiber which is a familiar medium and can easily provide many times the bandwidth copper could even hope for.

-Hal
 
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