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Ethernet cables: UTP vs. STP
SeraphimLabs:
I personally hate STP. The shield is annoying to work with when preparing the cable, and is of no benefit at all unless connected to a good earth ground at one end only. UTP cable is cheaper and easier to install.
Most installations don't take enough care in preparing the cable and properly grounding it to actually achieve any benefit from having it shielded, and accidentally grounding the cable at both ends can make the interference worse by way of ground loop.
Gigabit ethernet will work over even Cat3 at short distances despite being out of spec, but the further you go the higher quality cable you need for reliable transmission. These days I usually use Cat6 for all new installs, even though I have 5e cables over 100 feet long still in service and achieving reliable 1Gbps speeds.
The quality of the switchgear and NIC matters as much as the cable itself does. Cheap NICs and switches do a poor job of filtering noise and will be unstable at speed over a long or old cable, while the good ones can meet and even exceed the standards for network performance and noise immunity.
phitsc:
I personally hate STP. The shield is annoying to work with when preparing the cable, and is of no benefit at all unless connected to a good earth ground at one end only. UTP cable is cheaper and easier to install.
Most installations don't take enough care in preparing the cable and properly grounding it to actually achieve any benefit from having it shielded, and accidentally grounding the cable at both ends can make the interference worse by way of ground loop.
-SeraphimLabs (April 27, 2015, 04:41 PM)
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Interesting. I certainly did not care when I made my home installation.
The quality of the switchgear and NIC matters as much as the cable itself does. Cheap NICs and switches do a poor job of filtering noise and will be unstable at speed over a long or old cable, while the good ones can meet and even exceed the standards for network performance and noise immunity.
-SeraphimLabs (April 27, 2015, 04:41 PM)
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That matches my experience with my old laptop, which had a reliable 1Gbps connection every time. It was actually quite a disappointment when I connected my new laptop for the first time and it connected with only 100Mbps. On the other hand it forced me to finally fix that problem (which I had known about for a long time already).
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