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miken32
Asked: 2016-03-19 08:54:03 +0800 CST

Can unjacketed cable handle gigabit speeds?

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Looking at taking over management of an old network that was done in 2004. Surprisingly, for the time, it is category 6 cable. About 200 ports in each of 5 IDFs, all running PoE.

But I'm worried the cross-connects are unusable for a modern network. The switches are connected to standard patch panels. The cable from there is terminated into a punch down block (BIX.) The cabling coming in from the edge is also terminated into punch down blocks. The connection between the two punch down blocks is made with UTP cables of up to a metre long that have had the jacket removed.

So, can that setup handle gigabit speeds? I'm inclined to say no, but maybe I am just being overly cautious.

Photo of the cross-connects in question

A bigger version of the photo.

cable

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    It's not possible to tell for certain from a picture. Obviously the best thing to do would be to get or borrow (since they're expensive) a tester and do some end-to-end testing to find out for certain if the whole thing is up to Cat6 spec.

    There are Cat6 spec punch-down blocks available, so the first thing to check is to see if that's what you've got.

    I asked in a comment for a bigger picture so that it would be possible to see the condition of the unjacketed cables that connect the punch-down blocks - how much is untwisted at each end, how do the pairs look, etc. I'd be looking for:

    • whether the individual pairs of the patch cables are still properly twisted
    • if each cable is still "together" (i.e. all 4 pairs are close together)
    • no sharp kinks in the cables

    If the patch connections are Cat6 or 5e cable that's been unjacketed and if the cables are in good shape and if the punch-down connections are good (not too mangled in the untwisting) and if it's Cat6 blocks... then you might get gigabit out of it.

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