earthing outer braid on cat 6 telephone wiring

[merlin]

i am doing some major alterations to this house, and thought this would be a good time to rewire the telephone system with cat 6 wire, and add the adsl nation faceplate (which has been sitting in the drawer for ages)

then another thought came ,suppose i earthed the outer braid on the new wire ,to a stack outside in the earth, or may be to the house earth system (which still ends up as a stack in the ground) does anyone know if theres anything to be gained or lost with this idea.

my thinking is better shielding from stray rf 

[Simon]

Sorry, no idea, Bob, but I expect someone will offer some advice shortly, if not, in the morning. 

[Rik]

In theory, it should improve things, Bob, but I've never known anyone to do it to be certain.

[LesD]

I pondered the idea before I obtained and installed my CAT5 cable last year but was warned off it by a "Guru" at work who said that it might well end up as another aerial like the bell wire. I remember saying but one end or even both ends could be earthed but was told that earth was many things to different higher frequencies so not knowing any better I refrained from this approach but I still wonder about the rights and wrongs of it from time to time. I have Googled about it too without much success.

So a definitive answer if there is such a thing would be nice I guess.

[Fox]

I think the outer braid acts as an RF shield in the same way as a Faraday cage. I dont think earthing it will make much difference (and by connecting to the house earth you may actually introduce noise from your mains electrical wiring).

[LesD]

I have had another Google and found this but being from the "CAT 5 Cable Company" it might just be a wee bit biased!  

There is a further link to another FAQ at the bottom of the one I have linked to above.

This White Paper is also quite informative and at section 2.1 grounding (earthing for us in the UK) is addressed regarding safety and antenna (aerial) risks.

[Rik]

I'm not sure about this bit, Les:

Unless every single component in the network is gigabit rated, then you will never have a gigabit network, because your network will always run at the speed of your slowest device.

Most printers run at 10Mb, but it doesn't slow the network down to 10Mb afaik, just the link to the printer.

[LesD]

Most printers run at 10Mb, but it doesn't slow the network down to 10Mb afaik, just the link to the printer.

Yes this certainly provides food for further thought.