SOUND ON SOUND

[mammy]

Hi guys.I find ethernet cable.I need about 15 meters cable.Which brand is the best ?

[James Perrett]

I'm not sure that there is a massive difference provided you buy from a trusted supplier. If you buy from an unknown supplier on somewhere like Ebay you could end up with cable labelled as one category (like Cat 6) turning out to be something much less.

If the cable is going to move about you will probably want stranded cable but for something fixed solid core will be fine. If this is for live use then I'd look for something more rugged from a specialist supplier like VDC

https://www.vdctrading.com/shop/van-dam ... per-metre/

I used to buy things like network cables and switches from https://www.blackbox.co.uk/gb-gb/ but nowadays for just one or two cables I'd go for somewhere like CPC.

[Eddy Deegan]

What speed network is the cable for?

If it's less than a gigabit then pretty much any modern Cat 5 cable will be fine. 15 metres is really short for an ethernet cable (they happily run up to 100m) so if it's a 100meg network then Cat 5 should be fine.

If it's gigabit or more, then you should be looking at Cat 6 or Cat 6a. To be honest, for a 15m run you'll be incredibly unlucky to find anything that doesn't work as long as it's from a reputable supplier.

A year or two ago I bought an outdoor-tolerant 50m Cat 6 cable very cheaply from a random Amazon supplier to run down to an art studio I built at the bottom of my garden, and it's worked absolutely fine ever since.

Buy from any recognisable vendor and you'll find it hard to go wrong. Avoid high-street PC shops, as they tend to be massively overpriced.

[wireman]

W
If it's gigabit or more, then you should be looking at Cat 6 or Cat 6a. To be honest, for a 15m run you'll be incredibly unlucky to find anything that doesn't work as long as it's from a reputable supplier.
.

Same for Cat5e.