So I finally picked up a gigabit switch off of ebay a week ago. I just installed it into my current setup yesterday. I had already purchased two gigabit network cards for about $20 (with shipping). Unfortunately the cables that the connections are running over, don’t support the Gigabit Ethernet spec at the current distance between network card and switch.

About two years ago, my dad picked up a thousand feet of Category 5 (Ethernet) cable from my uncle. The amazing part is that we got it for free, because my uncle had paid all of $5 for 3 spools of the stuff. The stuff is typically $100 for a thousand feet. So I wired up our unfinished basement with the stuff. I sent two lengths of the stuff to each outlet box, one of the lengths was a gigabit run, and the other was a split between telephone and 100Mbps. I used my own “in-house” spec for the cabling instead of the official 802.11 cat 5 spec. It made things much easier, because I didn’t have to deal with all of the crazy crossing over inside of each wire. I had read previous to starting this project, that for 100Mbps connections, wires 7 and 8 remained unused. Perfect for running the telephone connection! Your regular analog telephone connection only requires a pair of wires, compared to the 3 pairs needed for 100Mbps (fast) Ethernet, and the 4 pairs needed for Gigabit Ethernet.

Now the basement is much more complete with several wall now dry-walled and taped. Although the areas in between the top of the drywall and the overhead sub floor are still exposed.

Unfortunately, when I plugged in my computers with the gigabit cards, I recieved the dulcet amber lights, telling me that they were both still at 100Mbps. Gah! I did a little research a found out that you can only get Gigabit speeds out of Category 5 cable, if the run is less than 10 meters. I guess that’s pretty good considering that the maximum certified speed for Cat 5 is 155Mbps. Well, guess I’m going to see if I can trim down some lengths. And at least my current network switching center looks pretty fab.