my house, built in 1983, has in wall rg 59 to tv access. I cannot get all channels from Verizon and they tell me that it is because my in house cable is antiquated. I am agreeable to updating to whatever is necessary (cable rg6, cat 6, etc) to be compatible with current requirements but I am completely confused as to the best way to go. Any recommendations? I would hire an electrician but want to be as knowledgeable as I can.
RG 59 was manufactured for over 2000 MHz.
RG stands for
Radio Guide an old and forgotten military jargon.
Although it (RG 59) has higher loses compared to RG 6, it will work just fine in homes.
Coax cable was described/ introduced over one hundred fifty years ago. (1858)
English physicist and mathematician Oliver Heaviside first described it in 1880 and patented it.
It does have higher loses in almost any frequency. You may experience noticeable degradation--if your house is the size of three football fields.
In today’s application of coax cabling—we hardly introduce data speeds over 100 MHz .
If you have a chance of monitoring your data throughput—you will see that on a good day 70MHz to 90MHz is commonly encountered.
Although this cable is capable of handling 2000 MHz (RG 6) (according to manufacturer) data traffic at around 1000 MHz hasn’t really been implemented by ISPs. . . so it’s just setting in the shelves.
Someone alluded to TOKEN RING Topology . . .which is a
non-sequitur to the discussion. . . . it is just a sort of name- dropping for the purpose of
SHOCK and AWE.
Not related to the discussion but mentioning it will clarify the “mix up”
Some posters who are overzealous might say:
Look I know something that you guys don’t. (bunk)
TOKEN RING using RG 59 is used in networking which has a distinct advantage over cat 3, cat 4, cat 5, cat5e cat 6.
Snake oil vendors claim it is faster than UTP cat 5 or cat5e.
The reality lies in the topology itself. Token ring doesn’t suffer from DATA COLLISION one major cause of slowdowns.
The token is always circulating in the network until requested by any member of the network. It is always “occupied” while UTP takes a pause. . . when command comes in, and other clients do the same thing. . . collision and bottle-necks occur.
Token rings are not encountered in homes unless you have multiple computers like ten units for example.
They are used in businesses where networked units are connected with servers and clients communicate with one another where efficiency is a must.
This is the first lesson in SCHOOL of NETWORKING as training along with frequency carriers and how packets are “made” and cued for delivery--along the network superhighway.
A lot of improvements have been given to this topology and most problems have been resolved.
With the arrival of 5G….and higher frequency --the damaged
packets and errors that can cause slow-downs-- can be replaced and discarded promptly--with customers not ever noticing the “gaps” because of the speed of the frequency carrier.
This new technology including wireless-- accelerated the demise of TOKEN RING.
CANBUS is still using this technology on automobile operation/automation.
Note: This is not to say that you don’t have to replace the RG 59.
If you have the wherewithal to switch to a modern cable technology. . . I would certainly recommend it without opening walls to install the newer RG 6.
