I recently bought some cat6 cables off ebay, it is a product with a company name penghong.com.cn, how do i know if these cables are real cat6? I am a little bit worrying because going through seller history he sold a few boxes of 305ft cat6 cables from phrise? and was returned by the buyer claiming it's fake.
how to identify fake cat6 ethernet cables?
Jammar on 08/06/2012 - 11:18
Last edited 08/06/2012 - 11:44
Last edited 08/06/2012 - 11:44
Comments
I think that was mean to be 10Gbps rather than 100Gbp, but Bruce is right - apart from the general issue of whether you've been lied to, the practical question is what speed and distance you need the cable to work for, and whether the cable is capable of supporting that usage. Most people will only ever run 1Gbit Ethernet over much less than 100 metres, for which Cat5e-rated cable is just fine if properly installed.
The details of how the cable is installed (such as the spec of jacks used, minimum bend radius along the cable run, and maximum allowed untwisted length at each end) can mean the difference between a working and faulty installation. If the work is not done to the right standards, you can end up with a flaky installation that sort of works sometimes, which can waste a lot of time in troubleshooting when it doesn't work.
Please bear in mind that if you're going to do fixed comms cabling work in Australia you need an ACMA cabling registration.
It was an intentional strech to indicate that one day this might bite you, but it will probably be a while off.
Chances are even 10Gbps will be fine, even if the cable isn't to spec.
Mmm, Wikipedia reckons Cat 7a (1000MHz bandwidth) might one day do 40Gb ethernet over 50 metres, and 100Gb over 15 metres, so I think 100Gb over Cat 6a is unlikely to work over any substantial distance. There's a big difference in maximum run length for 10Gb even between Cat6 and Cat6a, especially when cables have to run together in bundles (37 metres versus 100 metres), so the cable spec really does matter.
[FWIW, we have quite a lot of 10Gb Ethernet and 20Gb and 40Gb Infiniband at work:
- We don't run 10Gb Ethernet over copper UTP at all, because we still have lots of Cat5e structured cabling; the only copper 10Gb we use is short range (within or adjacent racks) runs of CX-4 and passive SFP+ cables, which are definitely not UTP, more like bundles of tiny coax cables and quite fragile. Any longer run within the datacentre goes over OM3 fibre.
- Our 20Gb IB cluster uses CX-4, but the cable runs are only 5 metres at most.
- 40Gb Infiniband goes over optical fibre cables with manufactured active QSFP connectors on the ends; internally, the cable is four fibre pairs, each running at 10Gb.
- There is also a big cluster with 500 * 120Gb active optical cables (3x40Gb Infiniband in one cable), but that was a special Sun thing that got canned when they decided not to sell supercomputers anymore…]
They have DOG6 written on them
got it refunded, thanks everyone.
while it's a great idea, OP is buying cables from ebay. I don't think (s)he is going to fork out hundreds(?) for a cable tester
Found this thread in searching for the same CAT6 branded cable (Phrise). I too bought 2x 100m rolls of cat6 cable from ebay. Networked first floor of house with first roll, found I could not get 1Gbps on my network, over ANY of the ports around my house.
Lots of hair pulling later, borrowed a Fluke tester from work and all lines were failing the 1Gbps test. Pair's 4/5 and 7/8 would not hold the appropriate signal with high line skew. All lines only approx. 15m long.
Tested the untouched roll over lengths < 5m and this also failed the 1Gbps tests. Had some 17m cat5e patch cable I made up a while ago which passes all tests including 1Gbps.
So looks like the Phrise branded Cat6 cable is shit and not actually Cat6 certifiable.
In the process of getting a refund from the ebay seller.
In future I will ask what brand is written on the cable itself prior to buying. What a headache.
Wow that is really bad. What surprises me is that it fails so significantly. I'm sure if they provided CAT5 level cables most people would never know.
Probably cheap out on the two pairs for gig, but at least this is quite detectable.
For the record I have purchased cable from here without issue (gig ethernet over 30M, no proper test equipment though):
Hey Bruce, thanks for the link, numerous people have mentioned 4cabling now. I did see them and their prices were more expensive, however I'm sure its because they actually carry authentic certified gear!
I will bite the bullet and buy a roll from here, in hindsight should've done this in the first place.
Cheers.
Very hard to tell. The requirement on CAT6 concerns singal to noise for high frequency signals. In most actual use cases CAT5/5e/6 all perform the same. If you have very long runs of cables you can run them at gigbit speed and see if you have any issues, but if you are only talking about a few meters you are not going to be able to tell without expensive test equipment.
Having said this, it probably doesn't matter, unless you are worried about future 100Gbps use.