Thanks for taking the time to explain. Mine are outside and run a long the walls which will be exposed to the sunlight they have been working for 4 years so far
You're welcome.
Sure: They'll work--until they don't any more

Degradation due to environmental exposure isn't an overnight thing. It's a steady progression that's mostly invisible--until it's not. They're already there and working, so I guess you might as well leave them. But don't be surprised when they eventually fail.
Useful thread and a great post by Dramus - thanks for that.
You're welcome.
Having said that, not much difference in price.
...
Seems a no brainer to go for cat6 if that close in price?
I would. Just make certain you use Cat6 connectors designed for solid wire.
In running the cable take care to avoid pulling hard on it, bending it tightly around corners, and especially take care that you don't ever let it kink. Leave a couple feet of spare cable at or near each end (referred to as a "service loop") in case you ever have to re-connectorize. Do not tightly-coil the service loops.
When terminating the ends you should have to push the cable into the connectors
fairly firmly to get all the conductors fully into position. Otherwise you may find the jacket "shrinking back" from the connector over time. It's a bit of an art, getting them
just right, that's only learned with trial and error experience.
The way I've found works best for me is to expose more of the individual wires than necessary, straighten them out, line them up in order next to one another, pinched between thumb and forefinger, trim them straight and even with a good pair of small diagonal cutters, then carefully insert into the connector all in one go. Monoprice sells some connectors that are particularly easy to terminate because they come with integral wire looms that you place over the conductors, in order, then trim and insert.
I use a relatively inexpensive cable tester that tells me my pairs are all terminated in the correct order. Proper CatN cable testers are prohibitively expensive, IMO, even for a network geek like me. As a substitute I hook my laptop up to the far end, run a bandwidth test using
iperf, then examine network interface error counters at each end.
Go slow, take your time, make sure you've got it right. A bit of care and attention at installation will ensure years of trouble-free network runs
