Cat5e Ethernet Cable Standards

Category 6 is an ethernet cable standard defined by the electronic industries association and telecommunications industry association.

Cat5e ethernet cable standards.

Cat 5 is also used to carry other signals such as telephony and video. Cat 3 and cat 5. Cat5 cable is typically used for ethernet networks running at 100 mbps or 1 gbps. It is tested to a higher specification to ensure it can perform at the higher data speeds.

Ethernet cables are grouped into sequentially numbered categories cat based on different specifications. Copper ethernet cables are still hundreds of times faster than the broadband data. This standard gave way to category 2 cabling. Cat 5e standard for cat 5 enhanced and it is a form of cat 5 cable manufactured to higher specifications although physically the same as cat 5.

Cat5e can have speeds of 1000 mbps and is used in many residential and commercial wired applications for gigabit ethernet. Category 6 cable cat 6 is a standardized twisted pair cable for ethernet and other network physical layers that is backward compatible with the category 5 5e and category 3 cable standards. Cat 6 is the sixth generation of twisted pair ethernet cabling that is used in home and business networks. Cat 6 cabling is backward compatible with the cat 5 and cat 5e standards that preceded it.

Cat 5e can be used for 100base t and 1000base t gigabit ethernet. Sometimes the category is updated with further clarification or testing standards e g. You ll still find cat 5 cables in use but you should avoid them altogether. Let s look at the technical and physical differences in ethernet cable categories to help us decide.

The cable standard specifies performance of up to 250 mhz compared to 100 mhz for cat 5 and cat 5e. This is the slowest cable that anyone should use for a new ethernet. Use cablek s gigabase 350 cat5e 350 mhz solid high performance etl verified bulk cable. Both cat 3 and cat 5 ethernet cables are at this point obsolete.

Category 5 cable cat 5 is a twisted pair cable for computer networks since 2001 the variant commonly in use is the category 5e specification cat 5e the cable standard provides performance of up to 100 mhz and is suitable for most varieties of ethernet over twisted pair up to 1000base t gigabit ethernet. Like cat5 cat5e is a 100 mhz standard but it has the capacity to handle bandwidth superior to that of cat5.