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

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 11:57:23AM -0400, D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote:
> Nice price!  Is it CAT5E or CAT6?  I try not to buy anything less
> these days.
> 
> I thought crossover cables were essentially dead:

They are.  Might explain the price.

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

Well they often only include two pairs, and gigabit needs all four.
Gigabit also doesn't need crossover ever.

> - 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".

Probably just about all do now.

> - 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.

Yes it does.  I don't think I have any cross over cables at home anymore.

> 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.

Doesn't any wiring you put in the wall have to be plenum rated due to
fire code?  So an off the shelf pre made cable probably isn't allowed
to be used inside the wall.  Not quite sure how those rules work.

-- 
Len Sorensen
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