In a June 2003 Wired Magazine interview, Martha Stewart said, "Bill Gates' house, for example, is totally out of date now. He built it right before wireless happened. The big tunnels for all his wires - he doesn't need any of that stuff anymore." The article wasn't about networking, or even technology, but I was struck by that statement because it was echoed by several people when I was explaining that I was running many thousands of feet of cable in OSNews' "house of the future." "Is all that cable really necessary now that there's wireless everything?" people said. As much as I respect Martha Stewart's business and design acumen, neither she, nor those people who talked to me, know what they're talking about. When it comes to networking, there's no substitute for a wire, when a wire's available. -- This is the latest entry in our 2008 Article Contest. 
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Member since:2006-10-28
Cat6 cabling was about 30% more per foot at home depot than cat5e. What's worse was the ethernet jacks for the wall - cat6 was $10/jack compared to about $2 for cat5e. I figured I'll go with the more expensive option in case I still live here when 10gigE (or whatever is coming that requires cat6) arrives.
Member since:2006-10-25
Cat6 cabling was about 30% more per foot at home depot than cat5e. What's worse was the ethernet jacks for the wall - cat6 was $10/jack compared to about $2 for cat5e.
Thanks. That was the info I was looking for. The last time I bought some, they were somewhat close to each other. I'd wager the cat5e then was rather high priced where I was shopping.
Edited 2008-05-16 05:30 UTC
Member since:2005-10-09
It goes for ~600-700$/300m for PVC, almost double that for plenum.
Member since:2005-11-15
proofing*?
No. Cat5E is sufficient for 1Gbit Ethernet, and Cat6 is NOT sufficient for 10Gbit Ethernet, so Cat6 is just a waste of money.
Member since:2005-07-08
Thanks for posting this. I've seen a number of issues caused by using cat6 in a 100baseT environment - lots of older (maybe even newer) COTS equipment meant for cat5 doesn't seem to like cat6. No idea why, and I have never seen a paper explaining the issue, but I can say for sure that factory terminated cat6 has failed or sucked in many cases where self-crimped cat5 worked fine (again, IME).
Member since:
2006-10-25
Though it does cost more, Cat6 is close in price. Isn't it worth it for home wiring to wire for the future rather than what is standard now?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_1_cable
As an example, a few years ago one could have had this question regarding cat3/5. Sure 5 cost a little more, and you can't imagine needing more than 10mb/s network *now*, but later, in the future, won't you have wished that you spent the little extra toward future proofing*?
*I understand that future proofing is in no way fool-proof in that we could shift to optical quickly or something else entirely. But when you see the next step, and it isn't that much more - why not?
My question then is, why so many going with 5e rather than 6? Are you getting huge discounts on 5e? If so, links please : )