I spent $36 to future-proof my home network, forever
About a week ago, I decided that I would never buy another Ethernet cable.
If you are like me, you have a box or a drawer with dozens of cables. And although some cables have specific connections, such as USB-C, my wired network (as it is) is only a random collection of colored ethernet cables with tiny small brands telling me what they can or cannot do. How many data can it transfer this cable? I had no idea. And it’s bad.
I had never really thought of which ethernet cables were executed between my cable modem, my router, my office pc. But me had The speed tests carried out more than once and feared that my network works more slowly than usual. And I also knew the problem: my network would work as quickly as its slowest segment.
If my ethernet cables transfer less data than my router or my bridge, I was potentially wasted money. I didn’t need to spend time looking for the fastest mesh router or the best internet gateway. If my cables were old, my whole network would be bogged down by my slowest cable. If my FAI discreetly increases the speed of my wide strip connection, I may not see any advantage. And I had already found an old CAT5 cable connected to my Xbox, a standard which was essentially extinct for about two decades. EW!
Mark Hachman / Foundry
About a week before my colleague Dominic Bayley published a useful explanator on the differences between Ethernet cables, I myself did research on the problem. Ethernet presents itself in different categories, from the old category 3 to the last category 8.
Is the category 8 therefore the last and the best? Ok, very good. How much is a category 8 cable? Basically, nothing, it turns out. I discovered that I could buy a pack of five pack of ethernet cables coded in nylon nylon for $ 35.99 on Amazon.
Large strip services always become faster. Cable modems are also. But even the fastest cable modems and wide -band plans offer only a few gigabits per second, while this CAT8 cable offers 40 gbits / s speed.
Mark Hachman / Foundry
For me, it was obvious. I bought the Amazon cables, I quickly exchanged my existing cables for new color coded options and I decided to never think of which ethernet cable that I had again.
Get a five CAT8 Ethernet cable pack in nylon coded nylon for $ 35.99
