Best CAT6 and CAT6A Ethernet Cables in 2023

It’s ugly, it’s a literal bundle of cable and it’s here to do a job. While there’s nothing to particularly write home about this cable, in particular, having 300ft of cable (91 meters) is absolutely more than enough for any full home connection.

You could theoretically thread this through the house via carefully placed holes or by running it along the skirting boards, pinning the cable against it with clips. This is pretty much the ideal length for major networking for a 1Gbps connection, as it’s far too much cable for a stable 10-gig.

This cable comes in 25 or 50ft, which equates to a maximum of 15.24 meters. While not the longest in the world, it’s ideal for placing around the house where you might want to hide it away, flush against a media center, or under a desk. Buying multiples of this and connecting them via Power Line adapters or switches can give you a lot more distance than originally intended, but you’ll still need to factor in the placement of these around the home.

This is also just regular CAT6 cable but is relatively cheap to buy in multiples and probably fits together with a really neat-looking network. It also comes with cable clips for you to hold the cable up with, as well as giving you either 1Gbps or 10Gbps.

Our pick of the best CAT6 and CAT6A ethernet cables if flatness factors in.

This CableGeeker Cat 6 Ethernet Cable, as you can see from the product image, looks a little different from most of the options we’ve listed. It details a more ‘flat’ look than what we’re traditionally used to, which is actually fairly useful.

Even though the cable is flat there are a few layers that go into the CableGeeker to make it durable. This includes a combination of PVC and an 8-core twisted structure which makes the cable robust and still flexible. Moreover, the core itself is of 30AWG nature which will withstand a bunch of flexing and bending, protecting your connection.

But just because it looks good and is durable, doesn’t mean that it performs well. So let’s talk specs. In terms of speed, it supports gigabit connections and up to 250 MHz bandwidth. So probably more than most would need with the average internet connection. But, with gigabit providers popping up more and more, it’s nice to have if you switch.

Once again, this is a bundle. It’s just cable. The difference between this and the other bulk amount of cable is that this is designed to be used outdoors. Not everyone has an outdoor office or repurposed shed, so this is for specialized reasons.

The plastic on the outside is waterproof, allowing it to be placed through the soil to bury it out of the way, without worry about it either suddenly breaking or frying. Primarily used for security cameras, it’s pretty much the ideal cable for running in outdoor conditions.

However, if you do have a garden office of some description, you might find that your Wi-Fi or Wi-Fi extenders don’t reach or provide a decent enough connection, limiting what you can do outside. This is where this cable comes in. As the office might be on a separate circuit, some Power Link connections won’t work properly, unable to detect each other, so running a decent length cable through the garden can wind up being the better option.

My recommendation would be to run this out, then once inside, to a switch which you can distribute around the office.

It’s more CAT6A cables! It’s the same verse as the first, but this time, it comes in 100ft and has a bevvy of colours to choose from. This variation from Monoprice even comes with a choice of colours to spice up your life.

There’s very little difference between this and the smaller version mentioned previously, but this is certainly a high-quality cable, there’s no doubt about it.

CAT6A is designed to cut through ‘alien’ traffic coming through so that you don’t get interference, hence the 550MHz signal advertised on this cable.