My house is currently wired using Cat-5 lines. If I were to replace the Cat-5 wiring with Cat-6 wiring, would I see an increase in my DSL speed?
Short answer is no. The reason is Cat-X is category then a number, the number meaning twists per inch. The twists help keep out crosstalk and interference. Rarely an issue in most households and even reasonably sized businesses.
VSA (Very Short Answer): No You may think this way: you have a working 100mbps LAN linking your computers. Maybe you have a 1000mbps LAN in case you use Gigabit Ethernet. You have a leased line (DSL) from the ISP rated for, maybe, 8 mbps --- it is an example, ok?. And you know this bandwidth is almost never achieved, and that any bandwidth you have is shared among your local computers. So even if the LAN performance increases by some infinitesimal factor by just using better cabling, you still are constrained by the bandwidth you pay for, or worse, the bandwidth you actually get from the ISP. The CAT-6 cables are really effective on very long cable runs or situations where the cables cross areas with high rates of electrical interference, as noted here by another user.
If you have a proper install of Cat-5 lines, then you probably won't see any improvement by upgrading the lines. Of course, if you question the quality of the old install - maybe frayed cables, maybe the ends are stripped too far back - mayby the lines run right against your AC power lines... Then a proper install of Cat6 (or anything comparable) will help improve speed inside your house. Things to keep in mind: - like another poster said; most DSL service doesn't even come close to the 100MB rating of Cat5. Cat5e and Cat6 are -theoretically- faster, but you can't make the bits move any faster than what your ISP gives you. - If you had an older install of Cat5, the installer might only be using 2 pairs of the 4 pairs of copper wire. Newer stuff, Cat5e and Cat6 require using all 8 conductors ( 4 pairs). If your old wiring was splitting off telephone service using the 'spares' - then you will need extra wiring to do this right. the comment about Cat# = # of twists per inch is not correct, either. the standard says something like.. Cat3 has about 3-4 twists per foot, Cat5 has about 3-4 twists per inch. Cat5e adds more twists, and requires all conductors. Cat6 more twists, and still all conductors. Cat7 proposal will have more twists, and braided shielding.
White-Blue Blue-White denotes that these two wires are twisted with each other. Same goes for Orange-white white-orange and so on. You just want to make sure that you use the same color pair (Meaning White-Blue Blue-White etc) with pins 1-2 and respectively 3-6. Really doesn't matter which color you pick as long as you stay consistent. White-Blue-Pin-1 Blue-White-Pin-2 White-Orange-Pin-3 Orange-White-Pin-6
you have to have speical equipment to use cat-6, so no if you did that it would still be the same as using cat-6
