I came across some flat ethernet cables (like this) and was thinking of picking some up, but I have no idea if their performance would be degraded compared to regular cables.
Does anyone know anything about them?
Ethernet – Do flat ethernet cables perform as well as regular cables
cableethernetlayer1
Related Solutions
My suggestion would be to wire the socket as a single connection and then if you later decide to use it as two cables, just use a splitter (a little piece of cable with one plug and two sockets) at both ends. Just make sure to get a splitter for Ethernet (which connects two pairs to one socket and two to another) and not ISDN (which just connects both sockets in parallel).
Connecting the wires to two sockets in parallel may cause signal problems for the gigabit connection and you (or someone else) will forget to use it correctly at least once and plug one end of the cable as a single connection while connecting two computers at the other end.
Upd.
Internal wiring of ethernet splitter
Splitter kind 1, kind 2 useful for patchpanel
It would be better if the image showed the pin numbers:
When you are looking at the laptop port, pin 1 is on the left, pin 8 on the right. It wouldn't matter if the port was on the left or right side of the laptop, as the pins would always be in the correct order if you are facing the port.
Best Answer
First off, the manufacturer may claim Category-6, but the UTP standard says that patch cords cannot exceed 5 meters, and this claims 100'.
It is highly unlikely that this cable can actually pass the Category-6 suite for patch cords in all the other tests in the suite (it will fail for length). If you happen to get one, get it tested on a high-end tester that can test the Category-6 suite.
At speeds up to 1 Gb, Category-5E and Category-6 will both either work at the full 1 Gb, or they are not properly installed. A cable system only gets the rating of the lowest rated component (horizontal cable, terminations, patch panels, patch cords, etc.) in the system. Buying Category-6 anything to add to a lower rated system is a waste of money.