Ethernet cables are one of the most important elements of any electric system. If they don’t work properly, the rest of the network would become nonfunctioning. Any type of disruption would make faulty Ethernet Cable’s performance slow.

Today we will be checking out some of the signs that indicate if your cable is performing up to the standard or not.

It Often Loses Connection

If you plug the cable into the Ethernet adapter and the light doesn't turn on, it could indicate a problem either with the cable or the adapter. Also, if you are seeing display messages like ‘network connection is lost’ or ‘no connection’, then something’s wrong with the system’s ethernet cable. In such cases, make sure that you’ve connected the cable properly. Otherwise, a bad cable will not work even if properly connected.

You Always Have Slow Connection

If your connection keeps dropping or runs very slowly, there are chances that you have a damaged cable. If there is a tear on your cable, it can break down the internal wire connection and can cause a short circuit. If you find a bent cable, try straightening it with your hands. In case it is too beat up, you will need to replace it.

Connection Restored With A Wiggle

Wiggling the cable re-establishes a failed connection. If you do this too often, it also means that you have a broken connector on your hands. Ethernet cables have a built-in plastic lever that secures the cable into place within the Ethernet adapter port. If this lever breaks, the connection will drop.

Do You Keep Replacing Them?

This is the ultimate sign that you need to check your network ecosystem. If replacing the ethernet cable eliminates the problem, then it’s well and good. But if the same problem persists with the new cable, the problem relates to the network. There could be some malfunction happening.

In such cases, there are three types of network cable issues you should look for:

Testing Connectivity Issues

These issues are majorly because of a faulty cable. Consider taking a quick test to check the connectivity. To check, try plugging the suspected cable into the network device or network connector of another computer. Typically, the jack you plug the cable into is the part of a network adapter. It provides the interface between a computer/ network device and the network cable.

These adapters have one or two LED lights which state that an established connection exists and transmission is happening on the line. After you plug the cable into the network adapter, the link LED should be on to indicate a connection. If it doesn't light up or flash, there might be a problem with the cable or its connector, or both of them.

Testing Performance Issues

If your connection is failing or transmitting data at much slower speeds, you have performance-related issues. This happens generally due to a damaged or bent cable. Usually, you can straighten a bent cable to solve the problem. And if the problem persists, you might have to replace the damaged cable.

To troubleshoot, visually scan the length of the cable and look for sharp bends, kinks, or other physical faults in the cable. If you find a sharp bend or kink in the cable, straighten the cable and check if the problem is solved.

Before replacing it make sure to shake the cable lightly at the connector side to see if the connection can be re-established. If so, then the problem is with the connector. Which also means that you need to repair or replace the entire cable.

Testing Continuity Issues

If there are any faulty connectors, bends in a cable, continuity issues can occur. They can also occur by a cut or a sliced cable, any kind of penetration by objects like a nail, staple, screw, etc. or electromagnetic interference. If you can visually scan the cable length, check for any of these causes. If not, test it with a continuity tester. An electronic device is specially made for this purpose. Such a device can help detect problems caused by EMI, or radio frequency interference.

Still Got Problems?

Even after doing all this if your network keeps failing, it is very likely that issues are with local network configuration, one or more of the network connectivity devices. Like adapters, switches, routers, and so on. Such faults will require a higher level of troubleshooting.

If you are looking to buy new ethernet cables, you can navigate to our ethernet networking cables page from here. From Cat 5E cable, Cat6A cable to Cat 8 cable, we have all the cables to fulfill your requirements.

Constantly getting bugged by the lost signal? Then here’s a guide to help you identify and solve the problems with your ethernet cables.

The Ethernet cable has been around for over 35 years. It is difficult to remember a time when you could use either your house phone or the internet via a dial-up connection. This changed when you could use both at the same time but still with an Ethernet cable. The cable got better in terms of speed and reliability. Then we switched over to Wi-Fi and modified Maslow’s pyramid to put Wi-Fi as a basic need. While wireless connectivity is great, the internet is faster when data passes through a cable. With every iteration of the Ethernet cable, the aim is to improve upon the speed and reliability.

Devices we use nowadays run on the internet. Our use of the internet is so much that we have refrigerators with screens and smart ovens that have cameras to see how much your food has cooked.

As our dependency on the internet increases, so does our need for speed and reliability. This is where the new type of cable comes in: fiber optic cable.

Fiber optic cable has a strand of pure glass that can transmit light. It can cover great distances because the coating around the glass strand does not absorb any. Light reflects internally in a phenomenon called “total internal reflection”.

Since light travels faster than electric current, a fiber optic cable can transmit data faster than copper cables. It transmits data at speeds of 1000 Mbps, or one Gbps, therefore, called gigabit internet. It makes promises (and comes through) of never having to wait for videos to buffer, never having your video call freeze awkwardly and getting an edge over your fellow gamers.

Gigabit internet is truly for the future. And the future is the Internet of Things. IoT devices popularly work on the IFTTT (If This Then That) protocol. One action triggers the next. This is how our routine tasks happen. This concept of routines translates to technology. A connected home routine is for your digital assistant to execute, or rather help execute. Your digital assistant is a central hub for all your smart devices. Let us look at some examples of how these routines work:

Morning Routine:

A standard morning routine triggers when you turn off your alarm. Then a pre-selected playlist plays, while your smart plug connected coffee maker turns itself on. After that, your digital assistant reads out the top news (based on your interests) to you. Lastly, it will tell you about your appointments and events for the day, the weather and commute time to work and sends the directions to your phone for navigation.

Safety Routine/Leave The Home Routine:

When you are ready to leave for work, you can trigger the leaving home routine with simple phrases like “leaving now”, or “I am leaving”, to your digital assistant. The smart home hub device then takes necessary, predefined steps to secure your house. Once you step out of the door, your smart door lock locks itself; your appliances like the coffee maker, air conditioner, toaster, and TV turn off. At last, your smart shades shut and your security camera monitors everything.

The advantage of this is that if you forget to turn any device off, you won’t have to rush back home. It will automatically turn off or you can turn it off remotely if connected to a smart plug. The important thing is that your home hub device should connect to everything in your house.

Come Back/Evening Routine:

On your way back home, you can trigger actions with phrases like, “I am home” or “I am back”. This can happen after you unlock your main door with a secure pin or key. After the trigger phrase, actions can start unfolding, with the shades opening. Then your evening playlist can start playing while you start cooking dinner and then the lights come on as the sunsets.

Night Routine:

At the end of the day, your night routine can trigger based on a phrase or set by a specific time. Your door will lock, the music will stop, and your thermostat will adjust to your ideal sleep temperature.

As the flow of these routines suggests, all the devices require constant and speedy internet connection, which a fiber optic cable promises to deliver. And with increasing devices, if you want to maintain speed, you need your house connection to switch to the fiber optic Ethernet cable.

SF Cable offers a wide variety of fiber optic cables to choose from based on your requirements. You can browse them here. For any other queries regarding this cable or any other Ethernet cable, you can contact us here. 

Source: https://www.sfcable.com/blog/fiber-optic-cable-reliable-smart-home-routine/

If you found these blog post useful, here are some other blog posts that may be of interest.

The History And Evolution of Fiber Optic Cables

Why Ethernet Cables are here to stay?

Fiber Optic Cables Vs Ethernet Cables: What Is the Difference?

Making, Working, And Advantages of Fiber Optic Cables

Back in the days when there was no WIFI, we were so fascinated with how a single cable connection could let you surf and access online data. As time passed by, we have cut down a lot on the cables. With a single Wi-Fi connection, we can access the internet from anywhere in our homes. All we need for that is good internet speed. But, when it is down, you cannot do anything but wait for the error-free connection (including adjusting our modem wiring).

Think about Ethernet cables. They might be old fashioned but when it comes to internet speed Ethernet cables gives you plenty of reasons to adopt them into your system.

There’s nothing like a WIFI connection. It changed our lives. Gave us the flexibility to consume data from anywhere with internet-enabled devices. In our homes, offices, cafe, restaurants. In short, everywhere. It’s now a part of our everyday lives.

Having said that there are a lot of benefits in using ethernet cables over a wireless connection. One might say that they are life-changing. We know it means losing your internet flexibility but let’s admit that Wi-Fi connections are not always pleasant. Sometimes they crash out of nowhere and sometimes we agonize over the ever-circulating buffer sign. The experience dulls down when you have thick walls or metal things around the house. These objects can throw off the signal which comes from your router. There is an entire industry selling devices which can help in curbing this issue.

Wireless connections are prone to signal drops and high latency. So, you will be just fine if your use includes browsing and documentation. But if you are an avid gamer, then things won’t look so bright. In such cases, ethernet cables are the answer.

When you connect an ethernet cable to your hardware, it will multiply your connection speed by two or three. Wireless connection speed is always going to be slower.

There are times when it makes no sense to use ethernet cables. For example, when you are just messing on a web browser, watching YouTube videos, WIFI would serve you just fine. Even when you are watching Netflix in the default configuration, your WIFI connection would serve you best. But when 4K streaming becomes an everyday thing, using a wired connection would make more sense.

The same goes for downloading large files, gaming, environment, video calls, mass surfing.

For sure WIFI is a great alternative for people. Because the streaming sticks usually don’t come with ethernet ports. You usually get it in $10 or $15 or so. But then people think that WIFI is good enough. They won’t bother.

Speed

The maximum speed of a Wi-Fi connection is 866.7 Mb/s. This is actually pretty fast, but wired Ethernet connections with Cat6 cables offer up to 10 Gb/s.

Latency

It is the delay which occurs when signals travel back and forth from your wireless device. It tends to be much lower when using an Ethernet cable.

While Wi-Fi is susceptible to countless environmental factors, walls and floors easily block radio waves. Even the atmosphere can cause problems.

Interference

You can rely on an Ethernet cable connection. Once you set it up you will hardly get any issues. On the other hand, WIFI is susceptible to interference. It leads to signal loss.

Security

It is easy for hackers to hack your WIFI connection. Even if you have the most secure system, someone could easily crack the password and use it. With a wired connection, unless a person connects an ethernet cable physically to their hardware, they cannot have access.

Plus, with WIFI, the data is in the air. So, if you use an open network, anybody can intercept all the data you send and receive easily. It includes personal details and logins. Most WIFI networks do have secured interface but its strength depends on the method of your security.

Energy-Efficient

Ethernet cables like Cat6 cables consume less energy than WIFI connections, helping you lower save on energy.

The 5G revolution is slowly approaching us. It would be much faster than the current connection. It is available in some of the major cities in the USA. And not in all the neighborhoods. So, it is going to be a long while before 5G will become a default source of internet. And even after reaching to the masses, there is no evidence that it will make wired internet connections obsolete.

Hence, it is best to stick to old school ethernet cables to leverage high-speed internet every time!

If you found these blog post useful, here are some other blogs that may be of interest.

Cat 7 vs Cat 8 Cables: What's the Difference?

How to Choose the Best Ethernet Cable for Gaming?

Fiber Optic Cables Vs Ethernet Cables: What Is the Difference?

Cat6 Ethernet Cables Ideal For Any Household