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Data - Cat-6 Wire

Cat-6 wire 

Ethernet wiring should be done with Cat-6 (not Cat-5 or Cat-5e).

The best place to buy it from is Monoprice.com.  Monoprice is an excellent company that sells excellent products at a great price with low shipping cost.  A box with 1000 foot of Cat-6 wire costs about $100.

You can buy Cat-6 with either solid or stranded conductors.  Solid conductors have better electrical performance so should be used for longer runs and for all in-wall installations.  (Stranded wire is a bit more flexible and is used for short patch cables.)  Cat-6 sockets with 110 punch downs are made for solid cable.

Cat-6 cable is also available with different frequency specs.  I recommend using 550MHz.

Get cable that's in wall rated.  Usually the description will say something like CM/CMG rated or will say "In wall rated".

Links to the different color versions of solid 550MHz are as follows:

Red        $95
http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10234&cs_id=1023401&p_id=6947&seq=1&format=1#largeimage

Black     $95
http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10234&cs_id=1023401&p_id=6181&seq=1&format=2

White     $95
http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10234&cs_id=1023401&p_id=6948&seq=1&format=2

Blue       $105
http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10234&cs_id=1023401&p_id=6943&seq=1&format=2

Purple    $105
http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10234&cs_id=1023401&p_id=8046&seq=1&format=2

Green     $108
http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10234&cs_id=1023401&p_id=6945&seq=1&format=2