Cable from Infinity Modem to HUB

Well BT arrived this Morning and installed the Infinity
small question
The house is being gutted at the moment so he installed Hub and Modem together downstairs
I eventually want the Modem tucked away downstairs and the Hub upstairs in the office running cables in trunking inside the walls
What is the Cable between Modem and HUB
Just Cat 6 ??

Cat 5

Yeap a normal Cat5e network cable will suffice, potentially up to 100 m long too.
Cat6 offers slightly better future proofing but can be more of a pain to work with.

Whatever you do avoid the flat versions, though some of the better flat versions do include the required twisted pairs.

With a bit of searching you can find coloured versions that may blend in better with the decor

One thing I did wonder is if the connection between the modem and router is auto sensing for the pin outs? So, if I was to run my own cat5 and use patch leads either end with the router/modem automatically work out the pin-outs for crossover? All modern switches do but I am assuming this would as well?

This is a futures thing as if I go FTTPoD then it may be the modem will need to be in a different room to the router and I would run my own bit of Cat5 with sockets each end and then use patch leads to connect it all together (mainly because I can't be bothered to crimp plugs on the end of the leads - punch tool sockets are much simpler).

Mine is connected with patch leads and normally wired sockets.

I have some pre made 15M Cat 5 in the Car from work
so i will wait till wall is opened up tomorrow and run that upstairs
Prob replace the BT Hub with another Maybe a Draytek 2930

Bad move. The correct/better way to do it.

Install Cat 5e between the locations and fit RJ45 sockets. Then short patch leads between the modem & socket and socket & hub. And if you are sensible put a second cable run in just in case you need a local network connection close to the modem - for example a burglar alarm control box might be tucked away in the same cupboard.

Cat5e will normally give Gbit on 30m runs so that should be enough for the future.

Edited by MHC (Tue 12-Feb-13 18:48:20)

Rare to find consumer kit that is not MDI-X compliant these days.

So the days of straight or crossover ethernet leads are largely gone.

Thanks. I thought it should be the case. The only question will be whether BT are willing to run FTTP direct into the living room. The current BT wire comes in through the dining room but then must travel through walls to get to the socket in the middle of the house in the living room. But, the living room also has an external wall so if they are willing to bring the fibre in there it would save a whole load of messing around - if not I can run a cat5 from dining room to living room and just separate the modem and router.

Of course, this all relies on FTTPoD being made available and the cost it actually ends up being (I've seen the news articles with expected costs but my line is about 600m from the cab so will be "above average").