Cat 6a cable installation issue

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rjnkanwal

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Hi
I ordered cat 6a cable for home install thinking bigger/higher is better. Now I found out that this cable has very strict guidelines about bend radius. The cable run is about 20 meters, going through three walls and a door frame. There are going to be 9, very tight(about 5-10mm radius) bends where as the requirement is minimum 27mm radius for bends. I know that this will deteriorate the capability of cat 6a.

Cable will be terminated into keystone jacks in wall plates on both ends and router and computer will be connected using cat 6a patch cables.

Would this cable still perform like cat 5e or would it be worse than that?
Should I stick with this cable or am I better off spending more money on cat 5e?
Thanks
 
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The bend radius may be only when it is running at 10g. If you connect it to 1g ports it likely have the same requirements as cat5e. You will never see a speed loss. The cable always runs at port speed ie 1g it will never run at say 800m. Mostly you will only get packet loss when you have the ends terminated poorly. In general in a home environment you have few problems because you are nowhere near the 100m lengths so things that technically do not meet spec will still work.
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rjnkanwal

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Yes I found out that but little late, cat 6a is on its way. I understand that I won't gain anything over cat 5e.
The main concern is that tight bends may make it worse than cat 5e.
So will it perform worse than cat 5e or not. Can I go ahead with cat 6a or do I need to fork out more money and get the cat 5e.
 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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Can't know the specific performance until it is installed.
Whatever you can do to minimize those bends...do that.

But yes, those tight radius bends might have an impact.
 
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rjnkanwal

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5 of the bends can not be avoided, others I can try to increase. I am not concerned with a little bit of speed loss but I am concerned with packet loss and errors in data transmission and I have no knowledge to check that.
 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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Everything can be avoided.
For packet loss, ping between you and the router.
 
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bill001g

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The bend radius may be only when it is running at 10g. If you connect it to 1g ports it likely have the same requirements as cat5e. You will never see a speed loss. The cable always runs at port speed ie 1g it will never run at say 800m. Mostly you will only get packet loss when you have the ends terminated poorly. In general in a home environment you have few problems because you are nowhere near the 100m lengths so things that technically do not meet spec will still work.
 
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rjnkanwal

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That is reassuring and I can go ahead with the install.
Thanks for your answer.

 
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rjnkanwal

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bill001g

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I am unclear what you are asking but ethernet cables are run in huge bundle of many hundreds of cables in most office buildings. Almost all discussions about cross talk are related to pairs withing the same cable. The distances are too great between actual cables to cause interference between them even when they side by side.

Do not get too deep into the interference and cross talk stuff. This is close to a non existent issue. You need extremely expensive meters to even detect difference and almost all are too low to cause a issue. A lot of this is marketing stuff to scare people into buying more expensive cable that they do not need. They try to confuse with a overload of technical jargon that does not actually mean anything to real world installations.
 
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rjnkanwal

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Thanks bill001g.
So no worries bundling it together and with the sky cable and as you said the distance is very small, just 20 meters and the run with sky cable is only 4 meters, so should not cause any concern.
Thanks again.
 
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rjnkanwal

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bill001g, Can you please explain the bend radius.
Instructions state that Bend Radius during installation 54mm and during operation 27mm.
Although I can not follow these instructions this time, i am just curious that why two different radius.
Thanks
 
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bill001g

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It has been so long since I myself installed commercial ethernet cables I forget the details. I know on fiber you mostly worried about breaking the fiber. Copper was similar in that you could actually damage the wire but I have yet to see anyone do that. Fiber was easy to break when you installed it if it happened to hang up on something while it was being pulled. Ethernet cable pretty much as long as it easily runs without you having to force it you should be good. You will get resistance to bending it before you hit the limits. Again this is over analyzing the problem nobody actually measure the bend radius on installations.
 
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rjnkanwal

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Well this bend radius instruction is certainly confusing. I think these instructions are for maximum limits ie 10gig and in home environment we only have 1gig equipment.
Thanks for your reply.
 
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