Will a 60-foot run of CAT-5 ethernet cable work?

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

| From: CLIFFORD ILKAY <clifford_ilkay-biY6FKoJMRdBDgjK7y7TUQ at public.gmane.org>

| I just saw an email from a wholesaler in Markham where a 100' crossover cable,
| with snagless RJ45 connectors, was $3.99.

Nice price!  Is it CAT5E or CAT6?  I try not to buy anything less
these days.

I thought crossover cables were essentially dead:

- they don't always work with modern handshaking (I've been told this
  but don't know what it means)

- many new switches figure out which way they can interoperate with
  the other side.  I think that this is called "automatic MDI/MDI-X
  configuration" or "auto sensing".

- having two types of cable that look the same is confusing and leads
  to yet another networking problem to be debugged.  Or maybe it is
  just me.

This is just inference from an amateur.  I welcome insights on this.

I have a box of CAT5e, connectors, crimper, and tester, all bought
from surplus stores.  Cheap and nasty, but they work.  But making
patch cables from this is not optimal.  For one thing, such cable isn't
pliable.  Better used for wiring a building, which I may get around to
one of these decades.
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