Talk:Category 5 cable

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Discovery channel claim Polypropylene

Discovery channels "how do the do it?" shows a Cat.5 manufacturing that uses Polypropylene. Which is not mentioned in the article. What's the truth? Electron9 (talk) 05:23, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The standards specify electrical performance, not construction. The article lists insulation material and their designations. -—Kvng 15:59, 5 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

After reading your comment Electron9, I wanted to know the specific season and episode number where you found the info, and so I found it for us all... It's: Discovery Channel, How Do They Do It, Season 1, Episode 4, "Internet Cable, Cranes, Pencils, Water, Toothpaste". Sincerely, •ː• 3ICE •ː• 12:46, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Twist Pitch

The twist pitch table should be deleted, I don't believe there are any requirements or specification for this, other than manufacturers finding that too many twists increases length and inductance, and too few twists reduces the benefits of noise cancellation. But the actual twist pitches, and the differences between each pair is entirely up to the manufacturer, as required to meet the cross-talk and other specifications. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MitchellShnier (talk • contribs) 18:58, 21 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Since a copy of the ANSI spec costs $989, I'll take some pictures of 3 or 4 brands of cat5e cable with the outer jacket stripped off for empirical evidence of the de facto twist rates.Darr247 (talk) 21:46, 31 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The twist rates and colors are specified in section 3.4 of ANSI/ICEA S-90-661, which IS a referenced document in the TIA-568 testing specification, and even though that one's only $116, I doubt they would consent to posting that section of it here. I would enter that link as a reference in the wiki, but would prefer not to delete your 'dubious - discuss' citation. i.e. feel free to do so. Darr247 (talk) 04:49, 3 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A reliable source for the information in the table is desperately required. Although the technique of varying the twist pich is well known, a source for the actual pitches is required. The original supporting reference has had to be deleted as it admitted that the twist pitch was measured and thus was original research. In any case it is an enthusiast's site and thus not a reliable source. 86.166.70.75 (talk) 19:13, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

User:Darr247 claims twist pitch is specified in ANSI/TIA/EIA-568-A and ANSI/ICEA S-90-661. We just need to find an editor with access to these standards to confirm. Or User:MitchellShnier is right and it's special sauce formulated by cable manufacturers. ~KvnG 12:45, 25 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

CAT 5 VS 5E

Seems to me these are not compatible. Reference? Seems important.

HDBaseT

Hi there, AV expert and first time wikipedia editor :-)

There are two problems with the HDBaseT statement in the Applications section. 1) The link to the reference to the HDBaseT press release no longer works. The HDBaseT alliance must have taken down or moved the press release. 1b) There should probably be a more specific article or source discussing the use of UTP for HDBaseT than a press release. 2) The statement that Cat 5 may be used for HDBaseT is conditional and should be expanded as to not imply that any Cat5 cable will deliver full HDBaseT functionality. Obviously a Cat5 or Cat5e cable rated at 100MHz will not transmit 10.2GBps even when using all four pairs. There should be a comment that higher-resolution video formats require greater bandwidth on the UTP cable (such as 350MHz or 550MHz), and many manufacturers of HDBaseT endpoints recommend Cat 6 or Cat 6A cable for full performance.

I know it's just an example of an application, but this just bothers me a but. Anyone mind if I go ahead and fix it? --Kevinzolitor (talk) 15:47, 7 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome to Wikipedia! I would prefer to just remove the HDBaseT mention. HDBaseT does say (with references) that either Cat 5e or Cat 6 will work. Maximum bit rate in bps is dependent on channel capacity can be much higher than bandwidth in Hertz. ~KvnG 19:51, 7 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

applications - multiple signal types in the same cable

Under Applications it is stated without Citation that it is ok to run up to 2 phone lines along with an Ethernet run (use those "extra" pairs, why not?). This is all well and good until somehow the phone decides to ring and you now have a 100V+ ringing signal across the primary of what amounts to a 100M long transformer. In the best case this ringing signal raises the noise on the other pairs, often to the point of interrupting the data link. In the worst case, after such repeated abuse, the switches and Ethernet cards on either end tend to take exception and quit working completely. please show me a citation showing that this is a non issue. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.105.114.179 (talk) 07:42, 23 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I added a few citations, as you requested, to Category 5 cable#Applications supporting "2 analog phone lines and Ethernet on a single Cat5 cable". Because of the way twisted pairs work in a Cat5 cable, very little of any signal (including the ring signal) on one twisted pair couples to any other twisted pair. Even if the ringing signal did completely corrupts and interrupts the data link during each ring -- so what? The Ethernet protocol is designed to re-send any packets that are corrupted or interrupted. --DavidCary (talk) 18:31, 28 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]