Cable grade is the part of a quote that looks technical and changes the result less than people think, until you pick the wrong one and have to pull it again. For almost every house we wire in Berkshire, Cat6 is the answer. Cat5e is the leftover that still works. Cat6a is the specialist.
If you are deciding whether to cable at all, start with is Ethernet still worth it and the Berkshire data cabling guide.
What the numbers actually mean
All three are twisted-pair copper with RJ45 ends in a home. The grade is about frequency, crosstalk, and how long you can push higher speeds.
- Cat5e: Fine for gigabit on typical room lengths. Common in older office leftovers and early home networks.
- Cat6: Tighter twists, better crosstalk. Comfortable gigabit, and 10 Gig on shorter runs. The current house standard.
- Cat6a: Heavier, often shielded, specified for 10 Gig over longer lengths and for noisier PoE. Stiffer in voids and around corners.
Your broadband is probably 80 Mbps or 1 Gbps. The cable is not the bottleneck. The bottleneck is WiFi through a chimney breast, or a camera on a wireless hop. Grade shopping is how people delay a useful install.
A typical drop from loft to a first-floor plate is not a 90 metre data-centre run. It is 15 to 30 metres of copper that will spend its life carrying gigabit to a desk, an access point, or a TV. Cat6 does that without drama. Cat5e often does too, which is why we do not rip it out for a logo.
When Cat5e is still honest
If a house already has Cat5e to the office and it tests to gigabit, we do not rip it out for a logo. We add Cat6 for new access points, CCTV and the rooms that never had a point.
Reuse Cat5e when:
- It is already in the wall and tests clean
- It only serves a desk PC or a TV
- You are not asking it to feed a 90 metre PoE camera
Replace it when the terminations are chocolate-block horrors, the sheath is outdoor cable used indoors, or someone joined two lengths under a floorboard.
We see a lot of early-2000s “computer points” in Maidenhead and Windsor houses that were put in when ADSL was the dream. Some of those plates still test clean. Some are a punch-down into a faceplate that was never meant for data, then a coil of untwisted pair behind the plaster. The tester decides, not the print.
Mixing grades in one house is normal. The office can stay Cat5e. The new AP drops and the camera home-runs should be Cat6. Do not let a salesman tell you the whole house is “obsolete” because one plate says 5e.
What we will not reuse is cable that has been stapled flat, painted into a sash, or left with a join in a void we cannot open later. That is not a saving. That is a call-out in two years.
Why Cat6 is the default pull
The labour is the loft, not the pound extra per metre. Cat6 handles:
- Wired access points for whole home WiFi
- PoE CCTV back to a recorder
- A garden office run that will still be fine in ten years
- 2.5 and 5 Gig links as those ports become normal on UniFi and similar kit
We terminate to wall plates, not to a coil behind a TV. Untested cable is not Cat6. It is string.
Outdoor garden runs need the right sheath and protection, not a leftover indoor drum. That is a garden office conversation as much as a grade conversation.
Cat6 is also the cable we can pull through a Berkshire loft without fighting the drum at every joist. It bends around a soil stack. It sits in a 25mm trunking without needing a shoehorn. Those boring facts are why it is the default, not a brochure claim about “future 10 Gig everywhere”.
On UniFi and other kit with 2.5 Gig ports, Cat6 is already the right copper. You do not need Cat6a to use a faster WAN or a faster AP uplink on a 20 metre drop. Save the thicker cable for the runs that actually ask for it.
When Cat6a (or anything “higher”) is worth the hassle
Specify Cat6a if:
- A camera or AP run is long and already warm with PoE
- You have a study that genuinely wants 10 Gig now
- The cabinet sits a long way from the far wing of a large Virginia Water or Ascot house
Do not specify Cat7/Cat8 because a forum said so. Those cables are often awkward in domestic voids and easy to terminate badly. A bad Cat8 run is worse than a tested Cat6 run.
Shielded cable also needs a shielding plan. Foil with no drain and a plastic faceplate is theatre.
Cat6a is fatter. It fights you in a tight eaves, around a listed cornice, and down a packed cupboard drop. On a long PoE camera run that is already sharing a bundle with two AP feeds, that extra copper and the better heat behaviour can be the honest spec. On the TV plate in the lounge, it is mostly stiffness you will swear at while the picture looks the same.
If you truly want 10 Gig to a desk, say so on the survey. We will look at run length, the switch you will actually buy, and whether Cat6 already covers it. Plenty of “10 Gig” briefs die when the computer still has a 1 Gig port.
We will not pull Cat6a through a house as a default “just in case”. Opening the loft twice because the first pull was the wrong stiffness is the expensive version of being thorough.
Points, not magic: how many and where
Grade does not tell you how many sockets to fit. Use how many Ethernet points for the room list, and adding Ethernet without ripping up the house for routes.
A typical three-bed might get:
- Two AP runs in the loft
- Office
- TV wall
- Optional spare room
A large house adds CCTV home-runs and a garden feed. All of that is Cat6 unless we say otherwise on the survey.
The AP runs are the ones that change how the house feels. A Cat6 socket behind the sofa does not help the dead bedroom. Backhaul to the landing ceiling does. That is why we argue about positions more than we argue about 5e versus 6.
If you only remember one rule: cable the things that hate WiFi, in Cat6, and stop. Spare plates “for later” are only cheap while the loft is open. They are not a reason to Cat6a the airing cupboard.
Berkshire installs, not data-centre folklore
We pull this daily in Windsor, Slough, Maidenhead, Bracknell, Reading and Sunningdale. Offices that need a cabinet and a patch panel should read structured cabling for Berkshire offices instead of this home-grade piece.
A Bracknell new-build loft with boards is a different pull to a Windsor eaves with no hatch. The grade on the drum is usually still Cat6. The route, the containment, and how we terminate at the plate are what change.
Reading and Slough houses often already have a leftover office point from a previous owner. We test it, we keep it if it is honest, and we add Cat6 where the WiFi actually needs help. That is a mixed-grade house, not a failure.
Sunningdale and the larger Ascot plots are where run length starts to matter. The far wing, the gate camera, and the garden office are the places we talk about Cat6a or a better cabinet location. The downstairs WC does not join that conversation.
Termination quality beats grade snobbery
A sloppy Cat6a with untwisted pairs at the jack will lose to a neat Cat6. We punch down properly, keep pairs tight, and we do not use cheap pass-through plugs as a lifestyle. If a previous installer left chocolate blocks in a loft, that is the first thing we cut out, before we talk about upgrading the print on the sheath.
Outdoor-rated cable for outdoor runs. Indoor cable indoors. Mixing those to save a tenner is how UV and water win.
For offices, the grade conversation sits inside a cabinet and a patch panel. Read structured cabling for Berkshire offices rather than this home piece if you have a floor of desks.
A wall plate is not a suggestion. A coil stuffed behind a TV, unterminated, is how you get a “the installer left us cable” job that fails the first time someone fits a 4K stick. We test, we label, and we leave a patch that matches the grade.
Cheap keystones and supermarket patch leads undo a good pull. If we are putting a small cabinet in, the patch leads are part of the install, not a bag you buy later and hope.
PoE, cameras and heat on the bundle
Several PoE cameras plus APs in a tight bundle in insulation is a heat and voltage-drop conversation. That is when we might step up to Cat6a or shorten the run with a better cabinet location. It is not a reason to Cat6a the TV plate.
CCTV installation and whole home WiFi often share the same drum on the same day. Specifying two different grades because two brochures said so is how lofts get messy.
PoE is power on the same pairs as data. Short, cool runs to a landing AP are easy. A 60 metre camera feed in a stuffed eaves, next to two other PoE runs, is not. We would rather move the cabinet or split the bundle than pretend the print on the cable cancels physics.
If the brief is “cameras and WiFi on one visit”, we design the cabinet first, then the grades. One Cat6 drum for the house, Cat6a only on the runs that earn it, outdoor sheath only where the cable sees weather. That is a spec. A loft with three leftover grades and no labels is not.