03-15-2025, 02:30 PM
Basically forever if you leave them plugged, otherwise sooner or later that little plastic tab will break.
Which doesn't mean you shouldn't replace them... Because the Cat 4 wiring that you installed in the 90s to support your 10Mb/s Ethernet won't be good enough to support early 00s 100Mb/s Ethernet (Cat 5), itself replaced in the later 00s by Gigabit Ethernet (Cat 5e or Cat6), so as you upgrade your devices, you should upgrade your wiring.
Which doesn't mean you shouldn't replace them... Because the Cat 4 wiring that you installed in the 90s to support your 10Mb/s Ethernet won't be good enough to support early 00s 100Mb/s Ethernet (Cat 5), itself replaced in the later 00s by Gigabit Ethernet (Cat 5e or Cat6), so as you upgrade your devices, you should upgrade your wiring.