After seeing that my wireless speeds were much faster than the speeds I was getting over Ethernet, I decided to invest in some new cables. I didn’t know it before, but I saw while I was changing them out that my current cables were Cat 5e. While putting my network together, I had just been grabbing whatever cables I could find in my scrap drawers. Now I have Cat 8 cables and my speeds jumped from 7MB/s to an average of over 40MB/s. It’s a much bigger improvement than I expected, especially for such a small investment.

    • catloaf@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      Yes, I was agreeing with you. Although as I mentioned, it’s technically 100m, which is 328 feet and one inch. And the spec also allows up to 5m of patch cable on each end, which I don’t think I knew.

      But that’s the spec target. Low-quality cable, physical damage, or environmental conditions like interference may reduce the actual max in practice. You might be able to push it with cat6 and up, but the spec still only says 100m.

      • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        Copper core versus copper clad aluminum is going to matter here too. Both will claim to hit the spec, but you’re more likely to get there with the expensive copper only.

        • TCB13@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Yeah and don’t forget good terminations. I’ve seen a lot of people not getting the speeds they could get just because they used cheap plugs/connectors.