I have lived in my house for 20 years. When I first moved here, I went through the effort to run (then current) Cat5 cables in various strategic locations throughout the house. Since then, especially as we did renovations, added a home office, etc, more locations were put in place, but newer runs (still >10 years old) are using Cat5e rated cable. Even my patch panel is Cat5, not 5e. At this time, I have endpoints in all rooms, plus three ceiling-mounted wifi APs, all using POE over Gigabit Ethernet.
It occurs to me that those old Cat5 runs could be pushing data at rates beyond what they were designed for. I know that the differences between Cat5 and 5e are subtle, so maybe I should just not worry about it, but I wonder if I'm setting myself up for trouble, and if I would be better served to upgrade the wiring. How would I even identify marginal cabling? Most of the runs are relatively short (<50ft), if that makes a difference.
Would it ever make sense to upgrade my home network to Cat6A?
It occurs to me that those old Cat5 runs could be pushing data at rates beyond what they were designed for. I know that the differences between Cat5 and 5e are subtle, so maybe I should just not worry about it, but I wonder if I'm setting myself up for trouble, and if I would be better served to upgrade the wiring. How would I even identify marginal cabling? Most of the runs are relatively short (<50ft), if that makes a difference.
Would it ever make sense to upgrade my home network to Cat6A?