apartment wiring solutions cables for living spaces electrical connections for apartments
apartment wiring solutions cables for living spaces electrical connections for apartments
Hi! For a Cat5 in Italy, you're looking to upgrade to higher standards. With 100m of cable, Cat6 or Cat6A is usually sufficient for most needs. UTP is better than FTTH if you're not using fiber-to-the-home, and S/FTP is typically unnecessary unless you have specific requirements. If you already have FTTH at 1Gbps, upgrading to Cat7 or Cat8 might be worth considering for future-proofing.
Cat5e meets the needs for 1 gbps, but cat6 and cat6a are currently more popular choices. Opting for Cat7 or Cat8 isn’t necessary since they offer little improvement over cat6. Be aware that budget cables often use CCA-coated wires instead of solid copper, which makes them cheaper but also causes signal loss over longer distances due to higher resistance. I suggest avoiding cables with CCA if possible; otherwise, they’re acceptable for short runs, such as up to about 30 meters. UTP is the standard Ethernet cable, FTP uses twisted pair with extra foil around the pairs, and STP may include aluminum foil or mesh like coaxial cables. The internal material doesn’t matter much.
For gaming it's good, and for Cat6A you can use U/FTP or F/UTP. Yes, pure copper is my preference!
It really doesn’t matter much. Cat5e performs just as well as Cat6 or Cat6a for 1 gigabit. There’s no real distinction between "gaming cable" — the term isn’t meaningful. It’s all about marketing. The varying specifications mainly reflect the data transfer capacity of the cable. Cat5e supports up to 2.5 gigabits per second over 100 meters, while Cat6 handles 10 gigabits up to 55 meters (per length). Cat6a extends that range to 10 gigabits over 100 meters. Instead of relying on Cat6a with CCA wires, I’d prefer solid-core copper cables or even Cat5e since it’s sufficient for gigabit speeds. If you don’t need to run the cables through walls, ready-made patch cables in various lengths are a better option—they tend to be higher quality than manually crimped connectors.
Cat5e supports up to 2.5 Gbps over 100 meters, while Cat6 offers 5 Gbps up to 100 meters or 10 Gbps up to 55 meters. Cat6a provides 10 Gbps up to 100 meters. Used to be considered Cat6a too much for the job. Recently Google Fiber announced speeds reaching up to 8 Gbps starting in 2023, making 10 Gbps feasible for home users. It's uncertain when you'll see those rates in your area, but it's worth considering. Cat6a remains adaptable since you can upgrade equipment later without changing the wiring inside walls.