Standard indoor Ethernet cables, despite rugged-sounding category names like Cat5e and Cat6, are not built for outdoor use because their PVC jackets degrade under sunlight, heat and rain, exposing internal wiring. Guidance highlights that outdoor runs should use cables rated for exterior exposure, such as direct-burial cables for underground installation, paired with surge protection at both ends. Outdoor-rated fiber optic cable is offered as an alternative that avoids some risks tied to copper conductors.
engadget.com
· 2026-10-26
Routers increasingly include 2.5 Gbps Ethernet ports, but using them at full speed requires a matching 2.5 Gbps port on the connected device and a Cat5e or newer cable. Internet-bound speeds are still capped by your ISP plan, though local network tasks like NAS backups can reach full 2.5 Gbps speed regardless of internet plan.
engadget.com
· 2026-10-19
Category cables like Cat5e and Cat6, normally used for networking, can carry HDMI signals when paired with HDMI extenders that place a transmitter on one end and a receiver on the other. This setup lets video travel much farther than a standard HDMI cable allows, without actually using Ethernet networking or a local network connection.
engadget.com
· 2026-10-03
Actual network throughput is capped by the weakest link in the chain, whether that's your internet plan, router or switch port, network adapter, cable quality, or cable run length. Cat5e can support 2.5Gbps and 5Gbps per TIA guidance, Cat6 can hit 10Gbps only up to 37-55 meters, and Cat6A is needed for 10Gbps at the full 100-meter distance. Cat8 supports 25-40Gbps but only over 30 meters and was built for data centers, while Cat7 is recognized by ISO but not by TIA in North America.
engadget.com
· 2026-09-29
Buying guidance for home network switches highlights two key factors: how many ports you'll actually need after accounting for the router connection, and matching switch speed to your router, internet plan and devices. A switch slower than your router or fastest devices becomes a bottleneck, negating any upgrades elsewhere on the network.
engadget.com
· 2026-09-21
Standard Ethernet installations are capped at a maximum total run of 328 feet, a figure set by networking standards to account for signal loss, interference and timing errors rather than an absolute cutoff. That distance typically breaks down into 295 feet of solid-core cable plus up to 33 feet of flexible patch cables at each end. Within that range, Cat5e or Cat6 cabling reliably supports 1 Gbps speeds, and everyday runs of 10 to 100 feet won't cause any slowdown.
engadget.com
· 2026-09-14
Ethernet cables with four twisted pairs can be divided by passive splitters into two two-pair connections, but this only works for older 10/100Mbps standards that don't use all four pairs for data. A functioning setup requires two splitters, one at each end, since a router's single RJ45 port cannot talk to two separate devices at once. Switches, unlike splitters, actively manage multiple full-speed connections through dedicated hardware.
engadget.com
· 2026-09-07
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