Decoding Cable Categories: From Cat5e to Cat8

We dive into the world of network cabling, answering 20 questions about Cat5e, Cat6, and Cat6A cables in a fast-paced, information-packed session to help you make better cable choices.

• Cat5e vs Cat6: Cat6 offers more bandwidth (250MHz vs 100MHz) and headroom for future applications
• Cat6 can handle 10Gbps up to 37-55 meters, while Cat6A supports 10Gbps to the full 100 meters
• The "A" in Cat6A stands for augmented, doubling frequency from 250MHz to 500MHz
• Shielded cabling is usually only needed in high-EMI environments and requires proper grounding 
• Use the "John Deere rule" – it's better to install higher category cable now than replace it later
• Plenum-rated cable is required by code for air handling spaces but costs more
• Never buy "copper-clad aluminum" (CCA) cable – it's unsafe and may void insurance
• Cat8 is designed for data centers, not homes – Cat6A is sufficient for future-proofing residences
• Professional installations should include certification testing as documentation 

Make sure you follow proper cable selection and installation practices to create reliable, future-ready networks that will serve your needs for years to come.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to Let's Talk Cabling
• 3:36 Upcoming Episodes Preview
• 5:14 Cat5e vs Cat6 Explained
• 8:17 Cat6 and Cat6A Performance
• 10:27 Cable Speeds and Future-Proofing
• 18:17 Shielded vs Unshielded Cabling
• 22:50 Plenum vs Riser Cable
• 25:19 Cat8 and Installation Best Practices

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to let's Talk Cabling, the award-winning podcast where knowledge is power and the low-voltage industry connects. Hosted by Chuck Bowser, rcdd. We're here to empower installers, designers and industry pros with the tips, stories and best practices you need to stay ahead. From copper to fiber, standards to innovation, this is the show that keeps you plugged into success. So grab your tools, turn up the volume and let's talk cabling.

Speaker 2: 0:36

Wednesday night, 6 pm, eastern Standard Time. That can only mean one thing Live after hours with your favorite RCDD. You know, that's me. You know that's me, your favorite RCDD. We have an action-packed show tonight. Action-packed. I have 20 questions, 20 questions I have to get through In 30 minutes.

Speaker 2: 1:05

Yes, so it it's gonna be a fun one, but you know we always start off with what are you drinking. What are you drinking? Of course you know me. I'm drinking my, my Zevia. This time tonight I'm drinking Cola Zevia, but I got to pour it into my, into my cup, though I don't have it in here. So I've had people actually accuse me of drinking Moonshine. No, this is Zevia, zevia water mix. So tell us in the chat box what are you drinking tonight? Kaylin's drinking water. You can never have too much water, right? Let me see. I've got to turn on the chat box so we can see people advertising Shotzi's in the house. And, of course, shotzi's drinking Diet, dr Pepper, diet, dr Pepper. Yep, all right, so let's do the acronym challenge. Oh, this is going to be a good one. This is going to be a good one.

Speaker 2: 1:59

Tonight's acronym SPL, spl. What does that acronym mean? That's the acronym challenge for tonight. I'll give you a hint. This week in the RCDD study group we're going through the AV section of the TDMM, the AV chapter. So it has something to do with AV. S-p-l, tyler says Senior Patrol Leader. Nope, that's not what it means. That's not what it means S-P-L. Anybody else want to take a guess on that? It stands for Sound Pressure Level. S-p-l Sound Pressure Level. So there you go.

Speaker 2: 2:41

Did you catch Monday's episode? I had a friend on another author, the third author in the three years on this podcast, and this author wrote a book on how to do sales in the low-voltage industry, whether you're selling products or you're selling your business services. So it's actually the name is it's sales by the book. He's a christian, so he's applying biblical values onto sales. Yeah, for low voltage. That was. That was monday's episode.

Speaker 2: 3:14

I've got some really cool stuff coming up. I do. I've got a two-part series coming up. It's called so you want to start your own low voltageage Business. Who in this industry has not thought about starting their own low voltage business? Right, and here's the thing. Right, it's not as easy as you think it is. So I've never started my own low voltage business. So what I did is I'm actually going to. I've actually I've already recorded it. I had three panelists. Each one of these three panelists has their own low voltage business, so we asked them things like you know, what inspired you to do it? What are your biggest challenges? What do you wish you knew beforehand?

Speaker 2: 4:01

Originally I thought it was only going to be a one episode show. I try to keep my shows to 30 to 45 minutes in that ballpark-ish range. We were at an hour and 15 minutes and I was like man, we're still going Daryl's in the house, daryl the RCD. So we broke it up into two episodes. The next Monday night will be part one of so you Want to Start your Own Low Voltage Business. The next one, after that, will be part two. And then I've got another special episode coming on Tips on being a Good Trainer. We have a good friend, trevor from Australia, from down under, a fellow RCDD, fellow trainer. We're going to talk about tips about being a good trainer. I've also got another episode of work that's going to be recorded here soon for designing, installing surveillance cameras.

Speaker 2: 4:50

That's going to be cool Because, again, that's one of the areas I'm not really strong in because I know people do it. I can probably figure it out, but it's not what I do for a daily living, right? So, again, like I said, we have 20 questions to get through tonight, 20 questions, and through tonight, 20 questions and it's 604. So we have we have, uh, 26 minutes to do this. Okay, here we go, let's get this going.

Speaker 2: 5:14

First question comes from mj delgado on tiktok, and their their question was what's the real difference between cat 5e and cat 6 cabling? Now, I forgot to tell you some of these questions tonight, I think, are from either entry-level people or people doing their own networking, but I feel it's a good information that we need to go over. So what is the difference between Cat5e and Cat6 cabling? So Cat5e is rated up to 100 MHz, cat6 is rated up to 250 megahertz. Now, both Cat5e and Cat6 are rated to do one gig all the way up to the 295 feet. Okay, they're both rated to do that. So that always kind of begs the question why should you go with Cat6 cabling? They're both rated to do that. So that always kind of begs the question why should you go with Cat6 cabling. Cat6 cabling has more headroom, so that's going to help you. If you've got a new technician who may not know.

Speaker 2: 6:13

Oh, I can't untwist the pairs too much. Dave's in the house. What's happening, dave? Physically there are some differences. Cat5e, generally speaking, is going to be 24 gauge. There are some other gauge Cat5es, but the vast majority of them are going to be 24 gauge. Cat6 is going to be 24 gauge as well too. I can't remember if there's any 23 gauge Cat6 cables. I'll have to look that up. I'll have to look that up.

Speaker 2: 6:38

Cat6 cables we're going to have tighter twists because they're performing up to 500 megahertz. And remember, when it comes to 100 megahertz for Cat5e, 250 megahertz for Cat6, remember, think of megahertz as lanes in a highway. The more lanes in a highway, the more traffic. Since 250 has more lanes, it can do more data across it. Now the thing is, you know, so they can both do one gig out to that full 295 feet, and Cat 6 can do 10 gig to about 37 to 55 meters, or 109 feet to about 180 feet. So the good thing about the Cat 6 is it's going to give you lower near-end crosstalk, lower power sub-near-end crosstalk, which means you're going to have less, you have more, actually more error-free links, especially if you've got PoE running on the cable as well.

Speaker 2: 7:38

Now the Delta here is Cat6. It's going to be a little bit more expensive than Cat5e. It's a little bit heavier, so you're going to be a little bit more expensive than Cat 5e. It's a little bit heavier, so you're going to pay a little bit more for shipping. It's a little bit heavier, so it's going to take a little bit longer to install it. But if you're trying to decide between Cat 5e or 6, especially if it's in a residential kind of thing, I would go with Cat 6 because it gives you a little bit more future-proofing. Future-proofing, okay.

Speaker 2: 8:04

The next question, question number two, comes from Ty Harris. He sent this to me via email and he says do I really need Cat6a or is Cat6 fast enough for 10 gig? Now, cat6a is rated to do 10 gig out to that full 100 meters, or 328 feet for the channel or 295 feet for the permanent link if you so desire. But Cat6 can also do 10 gig, like I said, out to that 37 to 55 meters. The reason it's not really a hard number is it really depends on how well you installed it, what environment you installed it in and did you install it near any potential sources of noise? That all can affect that. So Cat6A, a lot of times, is going to have a full wraparound. Sometimes it's going to have a cross-up separator, although there are some Cat6As that don't have that and Cat6As twist it even tighter than Cat6. And Cat6A is going to have better thermal bundle ratings than Cat6 because it's 23 gauge, where it's a bigger conductor. The problem is Cat6A cable is going to be a little bit bigger than Cat6A cable. So make sure you check your fill ratios, make sure you check your bend radiuses, fill ratios a lot of people like to talk about the 40% fill ratio number. So if you go with actually. So there are some what's called reduced outside diameter Cat6A cables which can be 0.23, 0.24, 0.25 OD, which is almost the same size as Cat5e, right? So the rule of thumb is you know, in office environments, multiple dwelling units, go Cat6a. If you're doing home and the wall is going to be closed up afterwards, then and the wall is going to be closed up afterwards, then yeah, I would go with the Cat6A. So that way because it's easier to do it once, not twice.

Speaker 2: 10:03

Question number three this comes from Logan McKenzie from TikTok. What speed can Cat5E, cat6, and Cat6A all support? So I already gave you the frequencies they're rated up to. Cat5e is 100, cat6 is 250, cat6a all support. So I already gave you the frequencies they're rated up to. Cat 5E is 100, cat 6 is 250, cat 6A is 500. The higher the frequency, the more lanes, the more traffic it can handle. So Cat 5E is rated by the standards to do 1 gig out to 100 meters. It can do 2.5 gig out to about 50 meters and it can do 5 gig out to about 30 meters.

Speaker 2: 10:36

The general rule of thumb is with bandwidth and copper cabling, the more bandwidth you put across the cable, the shorter that cable has to be, unless you change something about the physical characteristics of that cable. So for most home environments, right. So if you don't run, if you're on cable in your house, most of those runs are going to be less than 100 feet 100 feet right. And so if you don't run, if you're on cable in your house, most of those runs are going to be less than 100 feet 100 feet right, and so if you do that, you can easily run on cat 5e. You can probably easily run two and a half gig easily run two guys. You might even be able to run. It's going to be borderline, but you might even be able to run five gig. So CAT 6 is also ready to run 1 gig, but it can do 2.5 gig up to 55 meters, and it can do 10 gig again about that 37 meters. Cat 6A again 10 gigs out to that full 295 feet. It can do 25 gigs up to about 30 meters, and CAT 6A is going to give you the most headroom. So the real limiting factor, though, is going to be the quality of the patch cores, the quality of the connector, the quality of the cable. But don't ever buy category-rated cable from Amazon. Okay, go to Graybar, wesco, anixter, go to distribution. Okay, because Amazon's not going to help you if you have problems.

Speaker 2: 12:00

Question number four from Danielle Vargas. She sent to me this from LinkedIn. How far can Cat6 carry 10 gig before the speed drops? Already answered that 37 meters in the worst case scenario, 55 in the really low noise. But again, patch cords, patch cords, patch cords. Use high-quality patch cords and also stay TJ's in the house my future RCDD. Also, if you're doing cabling in a house, pay attention to temperature. Cable doesn't like high temperature. It's rated to be in high temperature. The higher the temperature, the performance gets impacted. So, again, I'm assuming from Danielle's question that this is inside of a house, right? So if you're running it through the attic, that's going to affect it. That's going to affect it. Question number five from Marcus Webb from LinkedIn Is Cat6 backwards compatible with older Cat5e jacks and devices?

Speaker 2: 12:57

Well, sure, they is. Sure, you can terminate Cat6 cable on a Cat5e connector. It's an APAC, a position 8 contact. What will happen, though, is you're only going to be as good as your weakest link. So, even though you've got Cat6 cable, you're still only going to get Cat5e performance out of that. So if you start testing it with a permanent link tester I mean with a certifier you're going to see that performance drop. Poe compatibility make sure that you follow the parameters for the class of the cable. All right, so that's really going to be what's going to happen.

Speaker 2: 13:31

Question number six from Erica Gonzalez on Instagram, and she wants to know what does the A stand for in CAT 6A and what extra performance does it add? So it's generally accepted. The A stands for augmented, cat 6A stands for augmented, and that's because when they came out with CAT 6A they doubled the frequency, as we mentioned already, from 250 to 500. But when you got into CAT 6A we started finding a lot of alien crosstalk issues. Right with cable, alien crosstalk is defined as one cable interfering with another cable as it goes down the cable pathway. So when they first came out with Cat6A like I mentioned on many many Alex is in the house when I mentioned on many other episodes alien crossfire was an issue. But then cable manufacturers changed the cabling and now you can do randomization, you can do cable combing. Oh, I can't wait to work on the podcast studio. I was supposed to do the conduit last weekend but Mama wanted the cowboy pool done first. So we got the cowboy pool done first, so that way we can rest and relax. Question number seven this comes from Trevor Foster from Clapper Can Cat 5E or Cat 6 safely deliver power over Ethernet?

Speaker 2: 14:43

So there are some limits set up by the IEEE. Type 4 is going to be all the way up to 90 watts and that's permitted on anything from 22 to 26 gauge cables. So Cat 5E, like I said earlier, you can get Cat 5E cable in 23 gauge, you can. So you can easily do that. You can get 24 gauge too, and it can do PoE as well. But the larger the conductor, the better it's going to handle the temperature and the current. For PoE Bundle size, there's two ways you can look at this. You can go to the code, look it up um um 725, 144. But the best practice from bixie is um 24 bundles or less. 24 bundles or less, okay, then make sure when you test and make sure you verify that dc loop resistance and you do your pair to pair and balance test to make sure it's 0.1 difference.

Speaker 2: 15:34

Question number eight Chris Brooks from YouTube. I misspelled YouTube on my notes. Whoops, when should you use shielded cabling versus unshielded cabling? The vast majority of the time in the United States, unshielded cable is fine. But Chuck, what about my house? It's fine, okay, but Chuck, what about my house? It's fine. Machunga, what about the office? It's fine. They twist the pairs at different rates to reduce those effects of EMI and RFI.

Speaker 2: 16:02

The only time you're really going to need shielded cabling is A if a customer requires it for some reason, or B you're in some kind of environment that has a lot of EMI. My podcast studio, the neon lights. I got them turned down so they don't affect me. That's a lot of EMI that could cause a problem. Hospitals have MRI machines, right. Casinos have the one-armed bandits.

Speaker 2: 16:27

So the Cat6A cable is going to give you the protection from the. I'm sorry. The shielded cable is going to give you the protection from that EMI. But here's the problem. Shielded cable will work better than unshielded cable in those noisy environments, provided you bond them to a ground correctly. You've got to bond both ends to a ground in order for that shielded cable to work properly.

Speaker 2: 16:51

Termination skills. So now you've got to deal with that shield. Make sure you follow the manufacturer's instructions. That's going to take a little extra time. Every shield and connector terminates a little bit differently. But they do have extra steps to deal with the foil shield and the drain wire. So make sure you do that.

Speaker 2: 17:07

Question number 9 from Caleb from Thornton is it worth paying extra for Cat 6 instead of Cat 5E in a small home or office? So here's the thing he's asked about Cat 6 versus Cat 5e pricing. So Cat 6 is more expensive, but it's not as expensive as you think. It's not expensive as you think. I apply the John Deere rule when it comes to cabling. The John Deere rule. You might be wondering what does that mean, chuck.

Speaker 2: 17:37

When I bought my tractor for the farm here originally, when I went to the John Deere dealership, I was looking at a, you know, like a 15 horsepower tractor. I don't have a big farm, this is a small little farm. And when I was talking to the sales guy he said look, nobody's ever complained about buying a bigger tractor. Right, and so I did. I went to a bigger tractor and I tell you what I'm glad I did, because I could do more. I didn't realize all the stuff I could do with it until I had the bigger tractor here. So same thing with cabling. It's going to be a little more, not much, but you're going to be able to do so much more with it.

Speaker 2: 18:11

So why not go with cat6? It's cheaper to buy cat6 now and install it, then put 5e in and then a year, two, three, two, three. Down the road when it doesn't have enough bandwidth for you, you've got to pull it out and put in Cat6 cable. Why not just go Cat6 now? Wi-fi 7 APs they're designed to push 10 gig back on. Since we're talking about homes, the cable runs are going to be smaller or less lengthy. Cat 5E is going to bottleneck it. Cat 5E is going to bottleneck it. And here's another thing a lot of people don't think about. Right, if you decide to sell your house, you might get more for it because you put Cat 6 cable in it, right, so why not go with Cat 6? Question number 10. Oh, this is going to be tight. I'm only at question number 10, and I'm 20 minutes into the show.

Speaker 2: 19:02

Shannon Brooks, exactly what is Cat6E and is it an official standard? No, it's not an official standard. When you look up in the ANSI standard, it goes Cat5E, cat6, cat6a, cat8. There is no Cat6E, it'sa marketing thing by a manufacturer. Is it a better performing cable than Cat 6? Yes, but there is no official ratings for Cat 6E in the ANSI standards. Now the vendor claimed they can do 10 gig up to 55 meters, okay, okay. So why not go Cat 6A? Right, but there's nothing in the table to do it. So best practice, just go Cat 6a, right, right, so, but there's nothing in the table, so best practice, just go cat 6a.

Speaker 2: 19:43

Question number 11 this comes from gabe ruiz and this was sent to me a direct message what is the maximum length for cat 6 and cat 6a? The maximum length is for permanent link, the cable from the connector on the faceplate to the patch panel 90 meters. Okay, if you want to include the patch cords, that would be called the channel. That's 328 feet. Okay, kalen's off to church. Thanks for stopping by, mr Kalen, but make sure that you test it correctly.

Speaker 2: 20:15

Question number 12, malik Johnson from TikTok Can I mix Cat5e and Cat6 cables in the same network without any issues? Absolutely yes, you can. Yes, you can. You can mix them together in the same bundles. But remember you're only going to get Cat5e performance out of the Cat5e cable and you'll get Cat6a performance out of the other cables. So you can absolutely mix them, as long as you terminate the Cat6 with Cat6A connectors and your Cat6A patch cords and Cat5E use 5E patch cords, 5e connectors. Like I said earlier, if you put the 5E connector or the 5E patch cord on that Cat6 cable, you're going to have a very expensive 5E channel. So there you go.

Speaker 2: 20:59

Question number 13. This comes from dylan. Uh, dylan carpenter sent to me via linkedin and he goes which category cable do I need for two and a half gig, two and a half g, base t or 5g? So you can, depends on the distance you want to run it as, like we mentioned earlier. We already answered this question in the first couple questions. Two and a half gig um cat 5e. Can can do 2.5 gig up to 100 meters? I'll take that back. 2.5 gig for Cat5e. Hold on, let me go back and look at my notes up here. I know I had it up here somewhere. We'll figure it out later. What I would do is go back up to question number 11. Where are you there? We go Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.

Speaker 2: 21:51

There we go there. It is Question number 11. You can run it on it, but the run's got to be shorter. If you're going to be running, the run's got to be shorter, right. If you're going to be running 2.5 gig, I highly recommend starting off with at least Cat 6. At least Cat 6. Maybe even go Cat 6. Again, you might be thinking it's an overkill, but again it's like the old Amco commercial you can pay us now, you can pay us later. It's cheaper to put it in now and not to deal with it later. Question number 14. This comes from Brandon Clark on Instagram.

Speaker 2: 22:24

Do I need a plenum rated cable or riser rated cable for my install? Right, so that kind of really depends. It depends on the environment. If the area that you're running through is designated as a plenum-rated area, then you have to use plenum-rated cable. You can write CMP, ofnp, ofcp for fiber if you're doing fiber and a plenum area is defined as any compartment or chamber that's used to move air. Now that doesn't necessarily mean a ductwork. That could be the space above the ceiling tile, it could be the space under the floor in a data center and by code it's going to say yes, you got to use plenum-ready cables because it's a return error thing. So plenum cable produces less toxic off-gases than smoke. Cmp cable is going to cost more money and there's a lot of companies out there that will say we just put in plenum cable everywhere, that way we don't have to worry about, you know, if we put in the wrong kind of cable, because plenum is accepted everywhere. That's kind of an expensive thing to do. It truly is. So try to use the right cable for the right spot.

Speaker 2: 23:28

Hunter Blake from Instagram does. How much more does Cat 6A cost compared to Cat 6 and Cat 5E? So it kind of depends on how much you buy, where you buy and the relationship you have with distribution or your local salespeople. As a general rule, cat 6 is going to add about 15% to a Cat 5E price and Cat 6A is going to add about 25% to 30%. When you start talking about the connectivity portion of it, you know Cat 6A jacks and patch panels are one and a half to two times the price of Cat6. But keep in mind when you're going with Cat6A bigger cable, bigger pathways, you might need bigger J-hooks, you might need bigger cable trailer, bigger ladder racks. So that's going to add to the project too. He didn't tell me what kind of environment you were installing it in.

Speaker 2: 24:17

Question number 16. Jose Ramirez. This sent to me via email Will Cat 8 cabling future-proof my house or is it just an overkill? Right now, don't run Cat 8 cable in your house. It's a waste of money. It is a waste of money If you really want to go future-proofing in your home. Cat 6A cable, all the in your home. Cat 6a cable, cats, the all the major manufacturers make cat 6a cable, cat 6a connectors, cat 6a patch panels. They're uniform, they're easy to do.

Speaker 2: 24:48

Cat 8 is still, you know, it still kind of has some issues, right, you know it's. It's only limit. First, it's only limited to like 30 meters, right, you can only get 40 gig out of that 30 meters. But if you go with Cat6a, cat6a can do 25 gig shorter distance. If it's in a house, that might be what you need to do. And here's the thing show me a home network that's pushing 40 gig. Show me a home network that's pushing 25 gig. Show me a home network that's pushing 25 gig, right? So stay away from Cat 8. It's really designed for data centers, not really designed for homes.

Speaker 2: 25:32

Question number 17,. Noel Vasquez from Twitter. I don't have a big following on Twitter, I'm still trying to crack that algorithm, but they want to know. Does Cat6 really reduce crosstalk and EMI better than Cat5e? Yes, it does. Almost by 3 dB. Almost by 3 dB. Cat6 cable is going to drop. It's called Equal Level Fire and Crosstalk, but they actually have another name for it now. It's going to drop that down and that extra headroom gives you a little bit of leeway for as far as maybe a little bit of noise environment, maybe help get rid of issues with poor installers.

Speaker 2: 26:19

And also, you always got to think about POE. You may not be putting POE on it now, but you might in a year or so down the road. Right, future proofing a house is running conduit for everything. Yes, it is. Yes, it is Conduit or Smurf tube. Smurf tube yes.

Speaker 2: 26:36

Question number 18. This comes from Isaac Torres on Instagram. Isaac wants to know should I terminate my drops? T568a or T568B Does it matter? No, you can do A, you can do B, just don't mix them right. You can do A on both sides, you can do B on both sides. They both work equally well. The only difference is they flip the orange and green pairs. Some people try to tell you one works better than the other because, well you know, you use the pins 1, 2, 3, and 6, and the orange is twisted tighter. It's malarkey. It's malarkey, I've tested it. It doesn't do that right Now.

Speaker 2: 27:14

With residential installs, the recommendation from the standard is to use the A wiring scheme because it's backwards compatible for two-line phone sets. Okay, dylan Clark from TikTok, do I have to certify Cat6 or Cat6N cables after the installation, or is a continuity test enough? Okay, if you're a homeowner putting Cat6 cable, cat6n cable, you don't need to certify it. All right, if you're a small business where you're just doing you know jobs for, like the local, you know vet store or something like that, you probably don't need to certify. But if you're a professional doing it as a company, certification is the way to go. It's the norm. It's what most of the high-quality installation companies will do. They'll certify the cables. It's what most of the high-quality installation companies will do. They'll certify the cables. It's going to provide you some protection If anything happens to that cable in the future. It's the birth record. As my good friend Ed, the old tech guy, will tell you, it's the birth record of that cable. So if anything happens to the cable. Afterwards you can prove that that cable was right, right, it was right, so okay, right is right, so uh, so okay. And then you manufacturing, if you, if you want, with the manufacturer warranty, you may be required to do cat. You may be required to do certification testing.

Speaker 2: 28:29

Okay, question number 20. I did it. 20, 20 questions in 30 minutes.

Speaker 2: 28:33

Fred johnson, are copper, copper clad aluminum cat6 is legal and safe to use? No, it's neither safe nor legal. Stay away from CCA cable, copper-clad aluminum. Copper-clad aluminum means the center is aluminum. They put copper on the outside of it. The aluminum can become brittle. It can start to crack over a period of time. It's going to have a higher DC resistance. If you do any kind of POE and keep in mind, most AHJs are going to fail you if you use copper-clad aluminum in inspections and your insurance company may deny you as well.

Speaker 2: 29:15

Now here's the thing You've got to be careful, because Amazon sells a lot of cable and some of it's copper-clad aluminum, and sometimes you'll even find a box that even had the sticker to say ETL, ul verified. That does not necessarily mean Jay, who's in the house, that does not necessarily mean that that that that UL sticker wasn't uh, wasn't. Uh, what's the word I'm looking for? Oh, the wasn't what's the word I'm looking for. Oh, the sticker wasn't not impersonated. Fabricated, right, fabricated. I did have a question. Come in here on tonight's show.

Speaker 2: 29:55

What's the best way to get network in an elevator if Running Cat 6 is not possible, okay, well, why do you want to network in an elevator? Most times elevators are only going to require um telephone networks, right, so just regular. You know, cat 5e, cat 6, um wi-fi is gonna be hard because the, the elevator is made out of metal. Um, but if you can get a cat 6 cable I mean a pot's cable to it, you can get. You should be able to get a, uh, oh, for a camera or an access point. That's a good point, that's actually a great point there, especially the camera, right, um, so yeah, the same way, you got that pods cable to it. You know there should be a.

Speaker 2: 30:29

A lot of times what will happen is the elevator people will tell you just to um run a cable to their head end equipment and then they'll make the connection to the, the serpentine cable that goes down to the, down to their head end equipment, and then they'll make the connection to the serpentine cable that goes down to their elevator shaft. So there you go. That was all 31 questions in 30 minutes. I did it, I did it, I did it, yes, yes, all righty. I don't know what mom was cooking out there, but boy does it smell delicious, it smells delicious. Until next time, everybody, everybody, remember knowledge is power.

Speaker 1: 31:04

Thanks for listening to let's talk cabling, the award-winning podcast where knowledge is power and the low voltage industry connects. If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review and share it with your crew. Got questions or ideas for the show? Chuck wants to hear from you. Stay connected, stay informed and always aim for excellence. Until next time, keep those cables clean, your standards high and your future bright. Let's talk cabling empowering the industry, one connection at a time.