topic Re: Broadband speed in Tech Help - Software/Hardware etc

Broadband speed

Batfrog — Fri, 21 Mar 2025 19:00:47 GMT

A cautionary tale. When I moved house (bungalow) some years ago I installed a network cable from the smallest bedroom – where the router (and now) the ONT are located, to the loft. The reasoning being that bungalows tend to have a comparatively large footprint everything being on one level. The idea, which work(ed) very well, is that the WiFi access point is located at the centre point of the loft meaning that every room has a good WiFi signal. All has worked well for around 10 years, despite the wild temperature variations in the loft!

I’ve just upgraded my broadband from 74Mb to 300Mb only to find my various laptops, phones and a tablet struggle to reach much over 100Mb.

After initially cursing Plusnet for provisioning the wrong speed I suddenly thought about the ethernet cable – Oh’ [-Censored-], it’s cat5 !! Sure enough moving the access point next to the router connected with a short patch cable everything gets 300Mb ish, in the same room at least. (Router WiFi is turned off)

Way back when the ethernet cable was installed I seem to recall cat6 cable was twice the price of cat5 so I didn’t bother. Penny wise and pound foolish or what?

The moral of this tale is don’t skimp it’ll come back to bite you !!!

Moderator's note by Mike (Mav): Avoidance of swear filter edited as per Forum rules.

Re: Broadband speed

MisterW — Fri, 21 Mar 2025 16:59:57 GMT

Way back when the ethernet cable was installed I seem to recall cat6 cable was twice the price of cat5 so I didn’t bother. Penny wise and pound foolish or what?

Are you sure what you've got is plain cat5 and not cat5e ?

cat5e is 4 pair and good for 1Gb BUT if you have a fault ( bad connection ) then it may operate at cat5 100Mb speeds

Re: Broadband speed

Anonymous — Fri, 21 Mar 2025 17:24:32 GMT

@Batfrog

Did you buy this cable pre-terminated, or did you buy a length of cable, run it in and put the RJ45 plugs on each end yourself?

If the latter, it might be worth firstly to give them another squeeze in the crimping tool and if that doesn't work, try cutting off the plugs and re-terminating the ends.

***EDIT***

I bought cable to run around our house when we first moved here 13 years ago. I used CAT5e, which I'm sure was the minimum spec available generally - I don't recall even having the option to buy CAT5 as no one seemed to be selling it.

Re: Broadband speed

HPsauce — Fri, 21 Mar 2025 17:40:38 GMT

Cat5 cable disappeared at least 25 years ago! And yes it was designed to run up to 100mbps but in a domestic setup with Gigabit kit would probably run faster.

What really won't run at over 100mbps is older 4-core cable (I have used a fair bit of that) even telephone cable! Again it will normally work fine at up to 100mbps domestically.

So maybe you only have 4-core cable or (as suggested) not all 8 conductors are terminated properly. You wouldn't have noticed before on a sub-100mbps broadband link.

(My FTTC only runs at 60mbps so my 4-core telephone cable, technically probably Cat3, is still fine)

Re: Broadband speed

Batfrog — Fri, 21 Mar 2025 17:45:16 GMT

@MisterW Not 100% sure it’s cat 5 but it does of course have 4 twisted pairs. Unfortunately it doesn’t have any printing on the outer casing but it is about 12mtrs long in total and looks very thin – less than ¼ inch in diameter.

I’ll have to investigate the possibility of replacing it with cat6+.

@Mr_Paul Yes I terminated it myself, so good point I’ll try an extra squeeze etc. I bought from a little shop no longer there, perhaps he saw me coming taking the opertunateity to ged rid of OLD stock !

Re: Broadband speed

HPsauce — Fri, 21 Mar 2025 18:24:04 GMT

@Batfrog 12 meters is nothing for an ethernet cable. If its got 8 cores and all are connected it should run at gigabit speeds with the right kit unless it's actually damaged.

And Cat5e is all you need, Cat6 is overkill.

Re: Broadband speed

Mav — Fri, 21 Mar 2025 19:02:38 GMT

Moderator's note(s):

Thread moved from Email to Tech Help.

Re: Broadband speed

Batfrog — Fri, 21 Mar 2025 19:55:14 GMT

@MisterW , @Mr_Paul After a bit of a struggle and using a spare cable and a cable tester the cable checks out OK. I’ve come to the conclusion its just el cheapo cable. Ah’ well I’m no worse off, actually a bit better off for now anyway.

It’s the old story I guess – you gets what you pay for!

@HPsauce I take your point but Cat5e and Cat6 are the same price, here at least.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/275024589428?var=576261159077

Re: Broadband speed

Baldrick1 — Sat, 22 Mar 2025 09:16:43 GMT

@Batfrog

Higher category cable is larger diameter and stiffer. For 1Gbps Cat 5e is perfectly adequate, Cat 6 at a push.

I have a Cat 5e cable that I found would only work at 100Mbps, despite testing OK on a tester. This went through a tortuous path in a wall cavity. I found that wriggling and pushing the cable fixed the problem, it has worked reliably at 1Gbps since.

I put this down to the cable becoming kinked due to a loop in the cavity, pulled into a very tight 360-degree bend during installation. Presumable pushing more cable into the cavity opened the diameter of the loop,. Although electrically sound the ‘kink’ was possibly bad enough to screw up the cable’s high frequency characteristics despite being electrically sound. Reliable high frequency cabling is funny stuff!

It may be worth checking your cable route?

Re: Broadband speed

Batfrog — Sat, 22 Mar 2025 16:35:45 GMT

@Baldrick1 Like everything in life events move on! A friend who is much better educated than me in the networking field happened to call this morning, looking at the cable in question he said “where did you get that from? that cable was new when Methuselah was a little lad!,” So, it looks like I was ripped off 10 years ago when I bought it, although in my defence it has worked fine at 40 and 70Mbs for years, anyway ……………..

Enough said! Like yourself and others in this chain he also said cat5e was more than sufficient for the job in hand, again as you say cat6 is thicker and stiffer and may well prove to be difficult to ‘pull through’ to replace the existing.

I shall be ‘obtaining’ some cat5e cable for the replacement at a convenient time.

She who must be obeyed seems to think there are more pressing jobs to be done!

So many thanks to all who have contributed to this chain.

Re: Broadband speed

Batfrog — Sun, 30 Mar 2025 15:23:08 GMT

@Baldrick1, @MisterW , @Anonymous Should anyone be interested this is the outcome of my saga!

It seems not all cat5e cable is the same ? Having changed the roughly 12mtrs of cable from my router to the access point in my loft (a TP Link Archer VR900 router) all is well and I get just over the 300Mb on WiFi 5 which is a noticeable increase in speed from my previous 74Mb contract.

Having removed the old cable (which had no kinks in it) I discovered a section with printing on it:

The Old Cable

The obvious difference between the old and the new is that the old is solid core whereas the new is multi stranded. I seem to recall from my far off student days that high frequencies travel on the surface of the wire core, a phenomenon called ‘skin effect’ and there is (or was) a type of wire called Litz wire for some high frequency applications, probably not relevant here but it is curious that the combined diameter of a single wire of the new cable when twisted together looks thinner than a single core of the old cable. To the naked eye the rate of twist on both cables looks the same.

Re: Broadband speed

MisterW — Sun, 30 Mar 2025 16:37:51 GMT

@Batfrog solid core cable is designed for use in infrastructure cabling i.e fixed cabling between sockets and patch panels where the connections are made using IDC and punch tools. Braided is generally used for patch cables where RJ45 connectors are attached using crimp tools.

Maybe your solid core cable was CCA ( copper covered aluminium ) which can be a bit 'cheap and nasty'

As long as its designated cat5e it should be capable of 1Gb.

https://www.truecable.com/blogs/cable-academy/solid-vs-stranded-ethernet-cable#