WildBlue and Belkin N1 Wireless Router

I use an N1 also, but with a different modem. First question I gotta ask is - do you have the Surfbeam connected to the Belkin WAN port (the yellow one)? If you used a good Cat5e (I use a Cat 6) cable, the Belkin should have found the Surfbeam right out of the box. Have you tried reverting the Belkin to factory defaults? Or the little white reset button on the back of the router?

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Well - a barebones answer is that 5e is an "up to" cable, and Cat 6 is a true Gigabit cable. There's a Cat 6e standard too, but I haven't actually seen one.

For the basic Belkin N1 (F5D8231-4 ) Cat 6 isn't technically necessary, as it only operates up to 300 Mbps (Fast Ethernet standard ?). Note however, that the later N1 Vision model (F5D8232-4) uses Gigabit ports. When you dig a little farther into the specs though, that's a bit cosmetic as well - since it's still an "up to" 300 Mbps router.

But I personally like to exceed - rather than just meet - minimum standards. I use 3 GHz coax and fittings for example, where 2.3 is technically sufficient. I use quad where twin might suffice. Among Ethernet offerings, Cat 6 is rated to 250MHz (100 MHz for 5e) and has a lower loss figure (19.8dB @100 MHz). Cat 5e is spec'd for 22dB @ 100 MHz). I didn't find a significant cost differential between the two (Belkin prices anyway), so I went with the higher frequency/lower loss cable.

So that makes the long answer - personal choice.

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