Cat6 cables?

massahwahl

VIP Member
I started to ask this on another thread but I didnt want to hijack it. We have tier 4 DSL internet but our speeds still dwindle in the 1Mbs range if were lucky. Usually its less than that.

So I was wandering if using Cat6 cables would help us achieve the full 6Mbs that we are supposedly paying for. Earthlink customer service is pretty worthless and they dont seem to have any solutions except charge me $40 to send a tech out. I thought maybe the current cables cant handle the extra speed? Any thoughts?
 
no, you have most likely cat5, there spped are 100 mb/s speed. that means you can have up to a 100 mb/s connection before you it cant go any faster. cat 6 is 1 GB/s so that means unless you have a connection of 100 mb/s<x<1 gb/s it is not worth going up. However it is worth upgrading if you need to do some local networking like sharing files. then yes cat 6 will let you transfer files localy at speeds up to 1 gb/s

also demand you pay 1/6 the price, OR ELSE!!! :P (they will say no but just request to talk to the manager and tell him :D)

jk
 
Cat 5 is more then enough to handle the 6Mbps DSL connection. What is most likely the problem is the phone wiring. Is your house fairly old?
 
our DSL did that too, when we switched to cable we got about 5 of the 8 were paying for...note: you can run gigabit Ethernet on cat5, just like you can run fast Ethernet on a phone cord of 4 pins
 
[-0MEGA-];856871 said:
Cat 5 is more then enough to handle the 6Mbps DSL connection. What is most likely the problem is the phone wiring. Is your house fairly old?

Our house was built within the past 20 years or so and they did send a tech out to check the connection point on our house and telephone line outside the house. Thats why I cant help but think its an internal issue. When I run speedtest's I get results that are all over the place, never consistant and usually more than less below 1Mbs. Could the phone line connected to the router need replaced?
 
I believe it is 4 but I dont know for sure. If it were only 2 I assume it would not be working right to begin with?
 
FYI

Cat5e and Cat6 both support gigabit speeds, the difference is that cat6 cable is rated at 250mhz bandwidth and cat5e is rated at 100mhz bandwidth.
 
Just to get some more information here, how far away are you from the ISP? The greater distance you are from the ISP, the slower your speed will be.

If you are only getting 1Mbps connection, I would tell your ISP if they can't diagnose the problem then you will downgrade your service, theres no point in paying for 6Mbps if you are only getting 1Mbps (if the problem isn't on your end that is).
 
Well actually its cheaper for us to have 6Mbs service than 2 which we were at before, dont know why but when I called one time they told us it would be cheaper a month to upgrade. As far as I know, the Earthlink connection point is less than a mile away, right down the road practically.
 
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