Hello Rizal, I have been told that you cannot solder additional cable to an
existing length of cable.  (Mind you I've read on other internet forums that
you can - so who do you believe?!)  The reasons I've heard for not soldering
additional cable length on to your existing cable is that additional
resistance that forms at the soldered joint will cause problems with data
being transmitted and may result in some poor network speeds and lost data.
Also I've read that cat5 cable is rated for 100 meters so make sure you're
not exceeding this total cable length. A simpler and easier solution would
be to go with your second option, use an 8 port (or 12 or 24 port depending
on your needs and the number of connections you need to satisfy) 10/100
workgroup hub, plug in the existing cable that you wanted to lengthen into
the uplink port, then use the remaining ports for whatever additional
connections you need.  We use Linksys etherfast 10/100 workgroup hubs at my
office in places where we need to add extra network connections without
running new cable all the way back to our main patch panel - they work great
and I think we picked them up for @$80-90 each last year, they could be
cheaper now. Make sure you buy a hub with an uplink port, apparently not all
hubs come with one.  Thx...rob,wpg

Original Email>>>>>>>>>>>>>Date:    Tue, 21 Jan 2003 20:42:34 -0800
From:    rizal sharif Subject: Cat 5 cable question
Hi, In my office, we have to relocate 2 network points toanother room where
the existing cable can't reach the new point. I think, it requires
additional 15 meters. I just want to know whether it's possible for me to
just soldered additional cable to the existing one to make up the additonal
length without losing much signal. It's quite difficult to lay new cables
from the existing switch without engaging a cabling vendor. My 2nd options
is to use 8 ports 100 MB hub. Thank you, Rizal Sharif

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