ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Voice - Data - Video Discussion How far on a CAT5 Ethernet?

Token Ring will run on any 2 pair shielded cable or even 4 wire UTP with baluns (cat3 or 5). The type one cable and ICS connectors only come if you buy the IBM cabling system.
I have also seen oversized RJ plugs similar to a phone plug, D shell connectors in various sizes or pin and sleeve Molex type plugs. In older bank stuff you even had gold 1/4" phone plugs.
There are also "bank loops" "store loops" and RS422 connections that run on 4 wire twisted pair.

Oh ya, seen lots of that stuff too!

It was used with the COINS, COLTS, &/or BATS Systems.

The connectors were 1/4" Phone Plugs + Jacks (Panel Mount type Jacks), with the "TIP, RING, SLEEVE" configuration.

Data Cable was a single shielded pair, with a jacket that made it look almost like "Zip Cord"!

On the Type 1 terminations, I have also seen several connector types used here and there.

Still have a bunch of patch cords with a DB-9 or DB-25 connector on one end, and the "typical" big-old black Amp connector on the other end. Patch Cable is Type 1 STP (with a CMP rating too! Never thought of putting a Workstation in a Plenum Ceiling; but if the opportunity ever arises... ...)

Seems odd, but I ran across more LANs with Type 1, or some similar type of paired Cable (the "Zip Cord" like cable of "COLTS/BATS" systems, or UTP in CAT 2 and 3 flavors), than with "Thin-Net" (RG-58 / 59 / 62u, or simply COAX).

LANs using "Thick-Net" were scarce - except at Corporate Campuses.
Had to bring Garlic with me, to scare off "The Vampires" - which were "Tapped" into the LAN Cable, at the NICs of each Workstation


Excuse me, I meant the:

"IBM Token-Ring Network PC Adapter"



Scott35

My office was wired with type 6 cable. It was fatter with the token ring set and 2 twisted pair for the phone. This terminated in the combo plate with the ICS connector and an RJ14 phone jack.
There is also a silver plenum rated token ring cable with a clear teflon jacket over the silver braid. I still have a bunch of that. I have made long PC keyboard and mouse cables with it. Works great for line level audio too.

I have a 50ft long piece of Cat5e running from my router, under the carpets, along the baseboard in the hall, to my filer server iMac. It has about five electrical tape spilces in it, from where my dog chewed it up and I didn't have any wirenuts. I un-twisted the pairs about 1", and I've seen nodegradation of performance. At one time I had used miniature terminal blocks and simply twisted the wires around the screws. The only time I have/do see a performance decrease is when the Cat5 runs parallel to a electrical cord. Oh, and did I mention, I also have a piece of Cat5 with RCA connectors spliced on for audio use. 25ft and it sounds fine, even up to 512kbs MP3s!

Ian A.

Ian A.

There is a big difference between 10BaseT and 100BaseTX. The old 10BaseT standard was restricted mostly by signal strength and attenuation. At 100mbps, though, the timing is SO tight that if the cable is really ANY longer than 100m, the bits will not reach the recieving terminal in the allowed time, an error is detected, and collisions occur. 100BaseTX can start to have problems with as little as 102-103m! Doesn't matter how high quality the cable is, or whether it's Cat5e or Cat6, as the wall is timing related. Luckily for us, most modems are 10/100 auto-sensing and switch to 10BaseT without the user even noticing And 10BaseT is FAR more forgiving- if high quality shielded cable is used and connectorized well, 500-600'+ is possible, though not really recommended Theretically, I suppose 10BaseT could work up to 1000m if the signal is strong enough.

I've seen 10BaseT work over cat5 as long as 500', but with issues.

[This message has been edited by SteveFehr (edited 08-19-2006).]

I know this thread is a bit old, but I wanted to add a couple of things.

If the Ethernet link between devices is running full duplex, this disables CSMA/CD and since no collisions can occur, there is no distance limitation.

Any limitation on the cable length would be the result of physical properties of the cable such as attenuation, crosstalk, etc.

[This message has been edited by 1000BaseT (edited 03-08-2007).]

It's been my experience that autosensing 10/100 devices will not automatically switch to 10mbps mode when there is a cable issue preventing successful operation at 100mpbs. They're continue to operate at 100mbps and little or no traffic will get through.

You either have to fix the cable issue (which may not be possible, if for example it's a run of Cat3 that can't be replaced without a lot of work) or switch the device to operate in 10mpbs mode (which may also not be possible if there's an unmanaged 10/100 switch at each end).

If there's a PC on one end it's easy enough to force it to operate at 10mbps instead of autonegotiating and ending up with a 100mbps link that isn't working.

What Brian said makes sense to me. As I remember the autonegotiation process, it doesn't attempt to measure the quality of the line, it just exchanges data that says, "I can run a these speeds; what can you run at?" And then it picks out the fastest speed.

Fiber would have been ideal but I saw one in an office suite use about 1100'.....was he getting 100 meg? Close he was getting spikes of 25 to 75 steady but I would never try that myself for a client.