Lan Cables

Hi Guys, i have a few questions i would like to ask. 
 
- Anyone heard of a lan cable brand HoldKey? It is a taiwan brand if i'm not wrong. 
 
- It is good? 
 
- I'm going to lay cabling soon in my home and what CAT should i choose? Cat 6 or 6a? UTP or STP? Using the internet for home usage. 
 
Need your advise! Thank you! 

Welcome to Cocoontech Evil Doctor.
 
Personally have not heard of HoldKey cable.  That said I haven't had to look to purchase cable in the last couple of years.
 
I installed 5e here over 10 years ago and it is doing fine today with the Gb network in the house.  Looking at the leftover cat5e boxes I see Belden cable.   All of the cable goes from patch panels to wall plates with keystone jacks (today).
 
STP is a bit over the top for residential network cabling.  UTP should be fine.  Last boxocable purchased was probably from MonoPrice.
 
Here is a little chart to look at. 
 

 
Just a quickie clip and paste....
 
Is Upgrading Worth It? Maybe Not, But…
The reality is that a Cat-5e cable with its up to 1 Gb/s speed will be fast enough for your Internet conenction. You probably don’t even have Gigabit Internet, so you won’t see any increase in your Internet speed if you switch from Cat-5e to Cat-6 cables. But, if you do a lot of transferring data between computers on your local network, upgrading may be worth it. And, if you’re buying new cables or wiring your home right now, you should at least use Cat-6 instead of Cat-5e cables.
 
Category 5 (Cat-5) and Category 5 enhanced (Cat-5e) are actually basically the same. Nothing changed physically in the cable itself — instead, Cat-5e cables are tested more stringently to ensure less crosstalk (electrical interference). In other words, only some of those old Cat-5 cables are good enough to be Cat-5e cables.
 
Cat-6 and Cat-6a cables are more interesting. If you have a modern router and modern Ethernet-enabled devices, you can get faster speeds — up to 10 Gb/s from 1 Gb/s — by using Cat-6 or Cat-6a cables instead of Cat-5 or Cat-5e cables. The rest of your hardware has to support it, but you won’t get those above 1 Gb/s speeds unless you have good enough cables. If you plug all your great new network hardware into old Cat-5e Ethernet cables that you ran through your home’s walls years ago, you won’t get the full speeds.
 
 
Doing new I would just go with Cat6. Prices are similar these days.

Before you buy any brand of cable, check to see whether it is pure copper or copper clad aluminum (CCA).  CCA can cause problems when terminated with connectors that are not designed for it.  I would not buy CCA cable.
 
CCA is less expensive than pure copper, which is why they make it.  Most CCA cable that I have seen comes from China and Taiwan.  Most pure copper cable is made in the USA.  No matter where it is made, double check to be certain. 
 
If it doesn't say pure copper, it is probably CCA.
 
I looked at Hold Key's web page, and they don't say.  Bad sign.

My guess is that the OP is thinly disguised advertising for that cable...

Geez ...that would be almost two today and it is still morning here.

Looks suspicious, but a google search of that name actually brings up a CT post from 2011 where someone else used it... Not sure of the quality of the cable.
 
Cable isn't that hard folks - it's heavy so shipping adds a lot to the cost.  Just go to HomeDepot and buy it - but get the one with the better PVC outer (you shouldn't see the braids/twists in the cable).  That one is easier to strip the outer on without nicking the interior wires.  You just groove it and snap and it pops off.  The cheaper ones will almost force you to cut the inner wires.
 
I do this all the time in commercial spaces - and while I spec Cat6a, there's really no good reason for it.  Nothing has come out or will come out in the next 10 years minimum that'll make any difference in a residential environment... and for that matter, there probably won't be anything in commercial that matters either except for the highest end data centers.  Cat5 (not even 5e) will do anything ever mentioned on this board just fine.  I've run gigabit at 150' on 20yr old Cat5 with no issues... So future-proof as much as you want or feel comfortable with but at the end of the day it'll all be the same.  Don't bother with Plenum or STP either unless you're bundling your cables directly against AC wires - it won't add anything and you'll most likely terminate it incorrectly nullifying any benefit anyways.

Only difference really in the CatX usage is when you're doing something other than standard TCP/IP data on the UTP, such as HDMI or anything else. Generally timing issues show up.
 
For 99% of the residential applications, there is no appreciable difference on a network.

I have trust issues with imports.   I've seen Amazon stuff claim to be Cat6 and then go on to say it's CCA.   As mentioned, only pure copper is Cat6 certified and there are lots of phonies claiming Cat6 or Cat5e that aren't.
hat's why I would buy from a reliable source and if buying online (like Amazon) read the reviews to see if it's genuine.   Imported stuff can claim anything.   A reliable manufacturer with a history won't. 
 
With that said, Cat5e works fine with gigabit networks for residential runs.  Not all Cat5 is equal either.  
Cable is relatively cheap.  I just pulled a few thousand feet of cable and probably spent $500 on the actual cable.  Probably overkill to use Cat6 pure copper, but I figure once the walls are up, I can't go back.
Towards the end, it got expensive and I couldn't justify Cat6 to a alarm panel or speaker control panel.  So I did cheaper Cat5 to many non critical data runs.
 
--Russ