New IT Room Cabling

[ITGURU]

We are possibly going to be setting up a new IT Room. As the rest of the school is Cat5e does it make sense to continue with this or should I install Cat6? Due to the decommission of a building which was ALL cat 6 I have recovered the patch leads, so wondering whether to make the new room cat6 to re-use the cables or stick with Cat5e

 

Whats your thoughts?

 

thanks.

[Jawloms]

Apparently rats don't like the taste of CAT6 so don't chew through it.

[ITGURU]

Apparently rats don't like the taste of CAT6 so don't chew through it.

 

No rats indoors so should be fine.

Only ever had rodent damage to fibre outdoors but that's before it was replaced with armoured.

[pcstru]

Only ever had rodent damage to fibre outdoors but that's before it was replaced with armoured.

We had a spate of squirrels eating through our fibre. They eventually saw the light.

 

[mikkydoos]

CAT6. Why not?

[synaesthesia]

Structured cabling should generally always be cat6 these days. Plus may as well reuse that cable if it tests OK

[elsiegee40]

Moved to wired networks from general chat

[MatthewL]

I suppose money will play a big part in it, not sure on cost difference now between CAT5 and 6 as its been a while.

 

For general use I see no issue in using CAT5, it supports GB.

[localzuk]

Really can't see a reason to run Cat6 to the desktop still. Cat5e can handle 1Gbit and is far cheaper.

 

Do you anticipate needing 10GbE to the desktop?

[QwertyMash]

We just build a full new building and as we had the opportunity to future proof we ran CAT6. If you want to future proof run CAT6 - if you are on a tighter budget consider CAT5e if CAT6 will push your budget too far.

[ellsandell]

I'd take the opportunity to Run CAT6a along with a couple of ports in the ceiling for Wifi.

[QwertyMash]

I'd take the opportunity to Run CAT6a along with a couple of ports in the ceiling for Wifi.

 

Totally agree with that statement.

[AlanD]

My vote would be for at least CAT6A

Yes the cable cost is higher....but not much higher and the labour costs must be about the same. No point in paying the same money again in 10 Year times (a lot can change in 10 years....10 years ago we had some 10Mb/s coax networking ).

You might easily want better than 1Gb/s to wireless access points (although I don't think any yet support 10Gb/s yet) ....

[Lonix]

We've been doing CAT6 for a year and we don't use anything else.

[garygeek]

We had a spate of squirrels eating through our fibre. They eventually saw the light.

 

 

Very good :-)

[PotNoodleTech]

I run CAT6 for infrastructure such as wireless access points but still cat5e for desktops as I doubt were ever gonna need more than 1 gig per PC and finances are TIGHT. Mobile devices are where the expansion is now and over the next 5 years.

 

Why not get a quote for cat5e and a quote for cat6 and see what the difference is, if it's a small difference for a whole IT suite then go cat6. If its a big difference then run cat5 and spend the extra money on more wireless.

 

//edit darn you thread necromongers!!! It wasn't my fault!!

[AlanD]

I doubt were ever gonna need more than 1 gig per PC

 

I remember thinking desktops will never want more than 64kb/s, then surely not more than 10mb/s....then thinking they won't want more than 100mb/s...

 

In the end its the trunking that has lasted longest...

 

Personnally, I'd put in something that would support 10gb/s at least to teacher desk, wireless AP, printers, and projectors... And I would have a few extra sockets for u foreseen extras.

[CraigM]

When our new building wing went up, I specified CAT6 for all points. Yes, desktops are not likely to go above 1GB, let alone IP phones and CCTV cameras but the future proofing is there from the get go. Our cable contractor also gave us a really good price on the CAT6 so it was a no brainer really.