Max. length for ethernet cable

[KlumpDud]

What is the maximum length you can have for a cat5 cable before the signal gets weak or dropped?

[azscary]

328 feet or 100 meters

[Confused]

I do contract work for a company that has thousands of them over 400' without any problems.


Chas

[azscary]

Are those ethernet or coaxial cable? If they are ethernet my guess is that there are active hubs or switches that are boosting the signal.

[Byte 2.0]

Ethernet I would say 300 to 400 with out boosters. depends on the environment they are going to be in. Also I believe you get better distance if the installer has taken care and good judgement on how they run the cables.

[gunrunnerjohn]

If you use higher quality cable, it's possible to squeeze more distance out of the runs. I personally don't do it, but it's possible. It all boils down to attenuation and coupling, better cable has less capacitance per foot than the lower quality stuff.

[mbossman2]

the wiring standards call for no more than 100 meters between devices. you can make longer runs but it can cause issues that can cause flaky issues on the network that the worst to trouble shoot (intermittent failures).

My advice is to stick to the standard, if you begin to work with larger companies they will insist that you adhere to the published standards (thats why TIA/EIA 568A exists).

[azscary]

Originally posted by mbossman2 the wiring standards call for no more than 100 meters between devices. you can make longer runs but it can cause issues that can cause flaky issues on the network that the worst to trouble shoot (intermittent failures). My advice is to stick to the standard, if you begin to work with larger companies they will insist that you adhere to the published standards (thats why TIA/EIA 568A exists).

Precisely my point. Intermittent failures are difficult to troubleshoot at times and long cable runs would be a good place to start looking.