Hi there. We're very sorry to see that you're having issues with the speeds. Can you send us a private message and we will be happy to check what's happening?

In reply to a post by candlerb:

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

A good quality Cat5e cable or better will do for 1Gbps upload and download. But for example, if you were to take a 3Gbps package then Cat5e will be limited to 1Gbps.

Actually, Cat5e is certified for 2.5Gbps at 100 metres.

With a short patch cable then 10Gbps is almost certain to work, even if not guaranteed.

I've heard of this before. But there seems to be conflicting information on this on the web.
Another article here https://www.genuinemodules.com/can-cat5e-do-25-gbps_...

Cat5e cables are designed to support data transmission speeds of up to 1 Gbps (Gigabit per second) over a distance of 100 meters. However, it is important to note that Cat5e cables are not officially certified for speeds beyond 1 Gbps.

I do not know if absolutely all Cat5e cables can achieve higher speeds. There are some lower quality and non certified cables that do vary in performance. 2.5Gbps will still be a limitation for Community Fibre 3Gbps as you lose that 500Mbps.

Nowadays, these cables are very cheap. You can get a Cat8 cable for only a few quid more than a Cat5e cable. Obviously it is overkill but it might be a good idea for the long term and clear any doubts about bandwidth limitation issues.

OP has to test with Ethernet cable if he hasn't already and if he has, he should try to swap cables and test again. They say for reliable and consistent performance it is better to use Cat6 or Cat6a cables due to better shielding and lower interference. At the end of the day it is all probably just marketing. But if there isn't much of a price difference then I'd always opt for the better quality cables just to clear all doubts.

If people use only WiFi they'll not achieve 1Gbps with any ISP due to its limitations. Then people blame the ISP for being poor when it is their WiFi that's the reason for not achieving anywhere near 900+Mbps. I've read these negative reviews on both Hyperoptic and Community Fibre on trustpilot. Then they get told that they need to use LAN cable. Many users switching from ADSL/FTTC to FTTP don't realise that their WiFi that gave them 80/20Mbps is no longer feasible for gigabit internet speeds.

They can do 2.5, the reason is some articles stating different is that when cat5e originally came on the market 2.5 interfaces were not a widespread product.

2001 - cat 5e
2016 - 2.5gbase-t

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2.5GBASE-T_and_5GBASE-T

I have some cat 6 here, and I regret buying it, very thick and rigid cable. Even after several years use still not straightened out trying to re-loop itself. Cat 8 surely would be worse. But maybe ok if used under floor or something, then can let it curl up how much it wants.

Edited by Chrysalis (Tue 14-May-24 11:36:23)

I wasn't aware that Cat5e was this old! Yes, that makes sense that back then no one had 2.5 interfaces.

In future when we have 10Gbps residential packages then surely better comparisons on performance can be made.

In our case here we use Ethernet cables for all 3 computers and drilled small holes at the bottom of the floor in our bedroom and living room. That way we have a 15 meter cable that travels to enter one of the computers from the router from one of our bedroom.

In 2018 we bought JONIFUN Cat 7 Ethernet Cable 15m - Fastest Cat7 Flat Ethernet Patch Cables 10GB for £12.39 as we didn't have an extra Ethernet cable. We opted for the Cat7 flat and we had no problems bending the cable. Looks like these are more flexible and thinner than our other Cat5e cables and lay on the edges of our laminate flooring.

We didn't feel like it was a waste of money as price difference wasn't specially different, only a few pounds more. Plus in future we won't need to change cables again and this will be a hassle.

The Netgear WiFi USB adapter that was being used for one of the computers in the living room was frequently losing connection every few hours and needed re-plugging. Now I don't know if this was a fault of our adapter but ever since we started using the Ethernet cables our problem got resolved immediately.

The speeds were also a couple of megabits lower with WiFi even on ADSL. Instead of 12Mbps in speed test it was getting 8-10Mbps. Ethernet cable solved this problem and the intermittent drop outs.

Many users particularly tenants use laptops with WiFi instead of connecting a LAN cable from their routers to their laptops or desktop PCs. Because they know that they may need to leave their homes soon or live with other tenants of the same household. LAN cables can be a hassle for non permanent residents. That's why when they switch to FTTP they suffer speed related issues as they are unaware that plugging an Ethernet cable will solve their speed problems and connection drop outs.

In many speed test videos on Youtube you'll see how their WiFi speeds give them poorer results. Yesterday I was watching a video for Sky 500Mbps FTTP package where one of the users was getting only 110Mbps with his tablet WiFi but after testing with LAN cable he was getting closer to the 500Mbps test.

Unfortunately, many FTTP providers will be getting negative reviews simply due to customer unawareness of not using Ethernet cables and purely relying on WiFi.

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

I do not know if absolutely all Cat5e cables can achieve higher speeds. There are some lower quality and non certified cables that do vary in performance.

Then they are not Cat5e, by definition. You can only call it "Cat5e" if it's certified to Cat5e standards.

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

2.5Gbps will still be a limitation for Community Fibre 3Gbps as you lose that 500Mbps.

Unless they provide you with the wrong ONT (which one person did report happening), or the router you connect to it only has a 2.5G ethernet WAN port, then the link will negotiate to 10Gbps. Simply plugging in a Cat5e cable will not reduce the speed. However if you try to run over a long length of this cable, errors will start to occur.

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

Nowadays, these cables are very cheap. You can get a Cat8 cable for only a few quid more than a Cat5e cable.

You don't want Cat8. It will probably work, but all that shielding is pointless and causes its own problems if not grounded properly. And it's only certified to 36 metres.

Cat7 isn't a standard at all. If you but that, what you are actually doing is paying *more* for an *inferior*, uncertified cable that is not guaranteed to work at all.

Please, anybody reading this, never buy anything that claims to be "Cat7" or "Cat8". It's usually fake junk anyway, marketed at people who don't know what they're buying.

You want Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP): Cat5e, Cat6 or Cat6A.

Perhaps you are right maybe if I bought a Cat6/A that would've been more than enough! I did not have an extra handy cable so decided to buy this Cat7 15 meter cable in 2018 for £12.39. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cat-Ethernet-Cable-15m-Comp...
I can't say about the authenticity of this other than the fact that it hasn't caused me any problems getting 80/20Mbps and no connection drops like a few negative reviews that claim to have. But will need further testing when getting gigabit broadband. The reviews are very positive 78% 5 stars and only 2% 1 star reviews out of over 16 thousand reviews.

Both Cat6A and Cat7 support 10Gbps except that Cat7 shows as 750MHz Bandwidth Frequency vs 500MHz for Cat6A. Maybe this is marketing gimmick.

Sure most of us only need Cat5e, Cat6 or Cat6A. I may have been naive to buy this Cat7 back then but it didn't feel much more expensive at that time.

As for Cat8 it claims to give 40Gbps support.

What would you say about the latest 25Gbps Vorboss package launch for businesses? Wouldn't they not need something like Cat8 cable otherwise they'll be limited to 10Gbps using the rest of the cables you recommend?

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

As for Cat8 it claims to give 40Gbps support.

What would you say about the latest 25Gbps Vorboss package launch for businesses? Wouldn't they not need something like Cat8 cable otherwise they'll be limited to 10Gbps using the rest of the cables you recommend?

There are no copper network adapters above 10Gbit and probably never will be, the power consumption would be huge. Its already best to use DAC for short runs and fibre for longer ones on 10Gbit, as a long 10Gbit copper run can use up to 10W per port. This is why there are no 10Gbit USB adapters.

Fibre is also much easier to manage as its only as thick as speaker cable.

Edited by alexatkin (Thu 16-May-24 13:26:34)

In reply to a post by alexatkin:

There are no copper network adapters above 10Gbit and probably never will be

Apparently, 25GbaseT over Cat8 *is* a thing:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/25_Gigabit_Ethernet
I've never seen it for sale, and I don't think I'm ever likely to see it.

For household ethernet wiring, Cat5e is still perfectly fine, and I suppose if you can get Cat6A installed for a similar price (and don't mind it being thicker, harder to bend and terminate) then you might as well. But there's definitely no point in Cat7 or Cat8. If you're determined to "future-proof" your house then install single-mode fibre instead. (But how are you going to power your wireless access points?)

Aside: at faster speeds, the module connectors in switches and routers are:
* SFP+ (10G)
* SFP28 (25G)
* QSFP (40G)
* QSFP28 (100G)

You *can* get direct attach cables that plug straight into the socket, for very short distances (a few metres) - e.g. between a router and an adjacent switch or server. But you might as well just use fibre modules and be done with it. They're usually cheaper too.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

For household ethernet wiring, Cat5e is still perfectly fine, and I suppose if you can get Cat6A installed for a similar price (and don't mind it being thicker, harder to bend and terminate) then you might as well. But there's definitely no point in Cat7 or Cat8. If you're determined to "future-proof" your house then install single-mode fibre instead. (But how are you going to power your wireless access points?)

If you want to future-proof run ducting
I went for Cat5e across most runs with a couple SMF. For a small house it's still fine for 10GBase-T

In reply to a post by candlerb:

In reply to a post by alexatkin:

There are no copper network adapters above 10Gbit and probably never will be

Apparently, 25GbaseT over Cat8 *is* a thing:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/25_Gigabit_Ethernet
I've never seen it for sale, and I don't think I'm ever likely to see it.

It's like 40Gbps Ethernet over Cat8, only certified for use in data centres with point to point links of up to 30m. Nobody ever marketed a product that used it as far as I can tell and I can't imagine it is going to be any different for 25Gbps Ethernet over Cat8 which has the same data centre only 30m max use. We basically use DAC cables or if they don't reach optical. The power savings for DAC over optical are alone worth it and they are still significantly cheaper.

Anything above 25Gbps the optics are either horribly expensive or you require expensive MTP patch cables which are also expensive. A 1m MTP cable is £48 from fs.com and two 100Gbps multimode transceivers are £222. If I wanted to use a bog standard LC-LC fibre optic cable the transceivers would be £212 *each*, and bizarrely single mode is cheaper. I think because they are on four wavelengths while the multimode is a single wavelength, they are £380 each!!!

On the other hand a 1m 100Gbps DAC cable is £36. Got a dozen 100Gbps links, you can bet your bottom dollar every link that I can do with DAC is done with DAC.