Cat6 Ethernet - what speeds should I be expecting?

Hardware Other Hardware
1

Hey, I am going to e orderrig 2 Cat6 cables for my modem to go to my router and for my router to go to my computer. I have been using some old Ethernet cable, probably a Cat5, that I found in my garage to connect my router to my comp. The speeds are terrible; ~1mb/s. My router supports gigabit speeds, and my modem is getting supplied by standard cable. I am paying for 15mb/s, so using a Cat6 cable, what speeds should I be expecting? Is Cat6a worth the extra money? I may know a lot about computers, but I am not well versed with networking. Cheers!


Brennan Riddell

2

no speed increase

you only really need cat6 in heavy interference areas, and 15mb/s would not even max out the speed of cat5/5e which can handle gigabit perfectly fine

3

Oh, wait - Amazon has some Cat6a cables that are cheaper than the Cat6 cables I had chosen. Problem solved!

4

Cat 5 is only good for 100 Mbps, it can't handle 1000mbps; only for a very short distance. If going a long distance with gigabit, you're going to burn the cable. Thats why Cat 5E came around.