Should I use CCA cat5e or cat6 cable? Or should I stay away from CCA cable?

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
R

ryleighlawrence71

Commendable
Feb 5, 2018
13
0
1,510
Should I go with cat5e or cat6 ethernet cable? I am wanting to run ethernet in my house and I don't know if I should go with cat6 or cat5e. Cat6 is very expensive unless you go with CCA. But cat5e is cheap but still, the CCA price is half the price. Should I stay away from CCA or does it not matter as I am not going to be transferring gigabytes or terabytes of files across my network? I just want ethernet for its fast, reliable, and easy connection. I really don't like wifi and I'm not going to be intensively using my network its mostly for browsing the internet and downloading a couple files here and there. So should I go with cat6 or cat5e and should I go with CCA or not?
 
Solution
B
The problem is there actually is no such thing as CCA ethnernet cable...at least EIA/TIA certified cable. The standard says the wire MUST be pure copper with wire gauge between 22-24. So that rules out that flat cable they sell also.

The main problem with CCA cable is the 2 types of metals expand at different rates. This causes the ends to get loose. Pretty much the same reason they do not allow aluminum electrical wires in most houses.

The only reason they get away with selling it is it work ok for shorter distances at least for a while. For patch cables they are easy to replace so I suppose it might save money...depends how often you end up replacing it.

I would not use any CCA cable in the house walls. You want to...
Sort by date Sort by votes
B

bill001g

Titan
Aug 9, 2012
28,359
2,766
125,640
The problem is there actually is no such thing as CCA ethnernet cable...at least EIA/TIA certified cable. The standard says the wire MUST be pure copper with wire gauge between 22-24. So that rules out that flat cable they sell also.

The main problem with CCA cable is the 2 types of metals expand at different rates. This causes the ends to get loose. Pretty much the same reason they do not allow aluminum electrical wires in most houses.

The only reason they get away with selling it is it work ok for shorter distances at least for a while. For patch cables they are easy to replace so I suppose it might save money...depends how often you end up replacing it.

I would not use any CCA cable in the house walls. You want to either use cat5e or cat6a. You would only run the cat6a if you thought you might need 10g. Normal cat6 cable has no benefit over cat5e for gbit. Technically it can run 10g for distances shorter than about 50 meters BUT like CCA cable this is not a certified use.

I would avoid buying any cable from amazon or ebay. They sell lots of CCA and other junk cable. Since the cable is kinda heavy the shipping costs will out weight the savings of buying online. I would check you local home improvement stores they have gotten fairly competitive and if there are any issue you have someone you can complain to locally.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Solution
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom