What is the best way to cable my small office with Cat6?

Question

I am not an expert by any means so please excuse my ignorance...

I just cabled my small office with Cat6 (only 6 connections). All the cables are running into a small closet. There I have my cable modem already connected. I plan on connecting my Cat6 ends to an 8-port Cat6 patch panel which will then connect to an 8-port unmanaged Gigabit switch via 1ft Cat6 patch cables. At the 6 individual office wall plates I will be directly connecting my VoiP phones. The phones will then directly connect to each person's PC directly as they have ethernet ports for this. There is no shared server involved at this point. My cable internet plan is only 30Mbps/10Mbps so the only reason for the Cat6 is Gigabit speed within the office.

My questions are the following:

- In what order do I connect my cable modem to the patch panel, switch or wireless router? Does it matter if I use a Cat6 or Cat5 cable?
- If, for example, the model is attached to the switch does it matter if a Cat5 vs Cat6 cable is used to connect to the wireless router or patch panel? Since we are only using Cat6 for interoffice use does it matter?
- Does it matter if we use Cat5 vs Cat6 cables from the VoiP phones to our PCs since our internet speed is still in a Cat5 category?

Thanks for the feedback!

Answer 1

Cable Info:

- Cat 5 cables ---- Speeds up to and including 100 Mbps.

- Cat 5e cables -- Speeds up to and including 1,000 Mbps (1 Gbps).

* Cat 6 cables ---- Speeds up to and including 1,000 Mbps (1 Gbps) + dbl the bandwidth of Cat 5e.

- Cat 6a cables -- Speeds up to and including 10,000 Mbps (10 Gbps) + dbl the bandwidth of Cat 6.



I like how you used Cat 6 cables almost everywhere. I took a quick look at the prices for Cat 5e patch cables vs Cat 6 patch cables and the difference seemed pretty small to me. I'd recommend using the Cat 6 patch cables -- just to make sure my "back office" equipment had as few roadblocks as possible.



As for the question about the cable link between the VoIP phones and the laptops/PCs -- use Cat 5e if either the phone or the laptop only supports 10/100 speeds. Use Cat 6 if BOTH support 10/100/1000 speeds. I say this because one day you may grow large enough to start using File servers & tape backup units and you'll already have most of the cable infrastructure done.



As for the connection order -- the most common would be:

- ISP Line/Coax <---> Modem/Gateway <---> Wi-Fi Router <---> Switch <---> Patch Cables



For a non-expert you did pretty good! I just saw what the first poster said about a PoE (Power over Ethernet) switch... It would make your life a *lot* easier not having to plug a power pack into a wall socket for the phone. In fact, my last company used PoE switches. But there is a bit of a cost differential between non-PoE and PoE switches (which may be offset by the purchase of 8 PoE injectors for your phones). Crunch the numbers, if you have the money -- go for it. Otherwise, continue with your plan...



Good luck!

Answer 2

For Gig Ethernet you don't need CAT6 at all. CAT5E would have been good enough. You can use CAT5 jumper cables, it won't make a difference.



Using VoIP phones? You need a PoE capable Ethernet switch? Typically a VoIP phone gets it's power from the switch.......but that depends on what VoIP phones you have. You could also use PoE injectors at the desktop.



If you only have 8 connections I wouldn't bother with the patch panel, I'd just connect the CAT6 directly to the switch.



Connecting to cable you need a router. Cable modem connects to the router's "WAN" port, switch connects to one of the routers LAN ports. You need the router to do NAT and be your DHCP server.



Since your Internet connection is 30Mbps, GigE to the desktop doesn't buy you much.

Answer 3

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