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Ethernet connections are the veteran workhorse of networking and connectivity. A beautiful web of copper and high-density polyethylene runs through the walls of our homes, apartments, and office buildings. If you’re like me and hardwire everything you can, then you probably have devices from your PC to your printer wired up with Ethernet. One of the troubles with long-standing technological standards is the bevy of myths and misconceptions that crop up around it over the decades. Here are a few myths about Ethernet cables, specifically the RJ45 standard most of us use daily, that you may still believe.
A quick search on Amazon or any other major retailer for Ethernet cables will show a swath of listings that advertise gold-plated connectors and espouse their various benefits. Phrases like “high-speed” or “professional” aim to confuse buyers and impart the false notion that gold-plated connectors have any impact on speed or performance.
The truth is that gold is corrosion resistant, so its purpose is only to make sure the connector doesn’t oxidize or tarnish over time. While this can come in handy for some niche industrial or outdoor use cases where the cables are exposed to high humidity or the elements, this is totally unnecessary for the average user. The durability of that connector should not be a realistic concern in your home office or game room. Gold-plating has zero impact on latency, signal strength, or bandwidth.
As many of us keep our Ethernet cables for a long time and tend to connect newer devices around the house to the same old cables, you’d be forgiven for thinking that it doesn’t matter what type of Ethernet cable you’re using. In fact, the different types of RJ45 cables serve different purposes, and using the right one can be an important distinction depending on your application.
First of all, it’s important to know what sort of Ethernet your house is wired with. If your home is from the ’90s or early ’00s, there’s a decent chance it’s been wired with Cat 5, which is limited to 100Mbps. If that’s the case, you would need to rewire your home with modern standards that support at least 1Gbps, like Cat 5e. Though if you’re going through all that trouble, you might as well wire with Cat 6a, which supports speeds of up to 10Gbps for some future-proofing.
Assuming your house is wired for modern fiber speeds, you might still grab the wrong cable for your needs. You might be wondering why your 5Gbps home connection is only coming in at 1Gbps, and it could be because you grabbed an old Cat5e cable that was lying around your utility closet.
Picking the right cable matters more than you might think, and it’s important to keep your Ethernet cables up to date. That goes for the cabling in your walls and attic as much as it does for the cables connecting your various devices.
Multi-gig ethernet is a waste of time and money for most users, and shouldn’t be a priority to implement in your home
Since this can be a hot topic, let’s just get straight to the facts. For Cat5e, Cat6, and Cat6a, the maximum cable length when running speeds up to 1Gbps is 328 feet, or about the length of a football field. So, unless you plan on stealing your neighbor’s internet from eight houses down with an Ethernet cable longer than the Statue of Liberty is tall, you’ll be fine.
So don’t stress over whether running a 25-foot, 50-foot, or even 100-foot cable from one room in your house to the other will degrade your signal or speeds. You are still likely in the clear if you’re dealing with higher-speed connections. Cat6 cables can run a stable 10 Gbps connection in cabling up to 180 feet in length, while Cat6a can support those speeds up to the aforementioned 328-foot limit.
In commercial applications like data centers, you might come across Cat8, which supports speeds up to 40Gbps. This is almost exclusively used for wiring short, ultra-high-speed links between servers or switches. Even then, Cat8 can maintain a stable signal on cables up to 98 feet in length.
The RJ45 Ethernet standard has evolved over time as network speeds have accelerated exponentially over the past 20 years. It’s a moving goalpost of limits and Cat types, so it’s understandable that some misunderstandings have been stubbornly present in the zeitgeist. Most of these unfounded concerns can simply be avoided by picking up any well-reviewed Ethernet cable online or whatever your local Micro Center has on the shelves for home networking use. You’re more likely to buy something that is overkill than something that is obsolete anyway.
If you’re just hardwiring your console, TV, or PC and you acquired them in the last five years, chances are a run-of-the-mill Cat6e cable will do just fine. There’s no need to spend more on gold plating or worry about length. Just check that the wiring in your home or office supports the standard (which it almost certainly does unless it’s over 20 years old), and you’re good to go.
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