Cat5e or cat6

Just had fibre installed and I want to move the router into another room , is the cable between the bt ONT and the router cat5e or cat6 and which would you recommend for 500mb fibre

for 500M - immaterial. (same for 1G) - only above 1G does it make any difference.

Makes no difference, Cat5e will do gigabit all day long. If I was setting out to buy a cable now though I would buy Cat6, but I'm not going to start pulling Cat5e out and throwing it away.

Cat5e is actually good for up to 2.5G over 100m.

You only need Cat6 for 5G (100m) or 10G (55m). Cat6A for 10G over 100m. But if you're doing 10G then arguably you're better off with fibre anyway.

Of course, if you can get Cat6 for roughly the same price as Cat5e then you might as well take it. Just beware it's a bit thicker and stiffer so may be harder to route neatly.

I would go cat 6. I did my house myself. It's harder to work with but worth the effort. Future proofing for faster speeds down the line...

Edited by choppersrock (Sun 28-Jan-24 08:45:06)

In reply to a post by atherlon:

Just had fibre installed and I want to move the router into another room , is the cable between the bt ONT and the router cat5e or cat6 and which would you recommend for 500mb fibre

If it's to do your whole house the go cat6.

If you are asking about the cable between ont and router then unless they are 100m apart it won't make any difference at all.

I would recommend cat5e between the ONT and router if they are close as it's just way more flexible than cat6 cable.
Both will perform identical.

If your using an existing cable that should work fine if you are installing a brand new cable I would get cat 6 as it will be more future proof

As others have said, upto 2.5gbe use a good cat5e cable.

5GBe - cat6/6a

10GBe - cat 6a /ideally fibre at this speed as its more flexible than cat6a cable!

A word on decent cat6a cable, it is very very stiff and that means rolled up cable may stay in a helix type structure until you de-bend it . Also avoid flat cable, unless its for short distances. Just avoid cat7 and cat8 cable, as a) there's zero benefit to you and b) decent cat7/8 will be even stiffer and worse to handle than 6a

Edited by Taras (Fri 31-May-24 11:34:02)