What is CAT 5 and CAT 6 Cables?

CAT5 and CAT5e and CAT6

* Network support ‐ CAT5 cable will support10/100 Ethernet. That is, Ethernet and Fast 

Ethernet. CAT5e cable will support Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, and Gigabit Ethernet. CAT5e 

cable is completely backwards compatible, and can be used in any application in which you 

would normally use CAT5 cable.  

* Less crosstalk ‐ Crosstalk is the electrical interference that results when one wire's signal 

affects another wire's signal. CAT5e cable has been improved over CAT5 cable in this 

respect, and crosstalk has been greatly reduced.  

* Bandwidth ‐ This is directly related to network support, in the sense that the bandwidth is 

the information‐carrying capacity of a system. The greater the bandwidth, the greater the 

information‐carrying capacity in a given period of time. CAT5e cable is rated at100 MHz, 

and it is this increased bandwidth (compared to CAT5 cable) that allows it to support Gigabit 

Ethernet.  

Category6 cable, commonly referred to as CAT6, is a cable standard for Gigabit Ethernet 

and other network protocols that is backward compatible with the CAT5/5e and CAT3 cable 

standards. CAT6 features more stringent specifications for crosstalk and system noise. The 

cable standard provides performance of up to250 MHz and is suitable for10BASE‐T / 

100BASE‐TX and1000BASE‐T /1000BASE‐TX (Gigabit Ethernet). It is expected to suit the 

10GBASE‐T (10Gigabit Ethernet) standard, although with limitations on length if unshielded 

CAT6 cable is used. CAT6 cables can be identified by the printing on the side. 

Extra Info:

Currently there is a great deal of confusion among Ethernet cable buyers concerning 

whether to purchase CAT5e, or to use CAT6. Most of this confusion comes from a 

misunderstanding by the buyer that buying CAT6 cable will give them an "all gigabit" 

network. This is not the case. Unless every single component in the network is gigabit rated 

you will never have a gigabit network, because your network will always run at the speed of 

your slowest device. CAT5e cable of good quality can run near or at gigabit speeds, it just 

cannot be "certified" for this use. By comparison, CAT6 is designed especially for gigabit use, 

and is certified to operate at said speed.  

The CAT6 cable is terminated in either the T568A scheme or the T568B scheme. As long as 

both ends of a cable are terminated using the same scheme, it doesn't matter which scheme 

is used; they are both straight through (pin1 to1, pin2 to2, etc) and the pairing is the same. 

Mixing T568A‐terminated patch cords with T568B‐terminated horizontal cables (or the 

reverse) does not produce problems in a facility. The T568B Scheme is by far the most widely 

used method of terminating patch cables. 

If the question is on specs of these categories of the cable, then it is available on the web.  But if it is for application, then we can generally converge only on  CAT5e and CAT6 cables.  Practically for local LAN for general users, CAT5e will be sufficient enough which can drive upto100 Mbps.  Only in cases where you need a higher LAN speed - like across servers in data centres, or for development teams/ CAD designers, etc.  can use cat6 ( if cost is an issue).  Otherwise having a standard installation around CAT6e is a suggested practice.  As far as the distribution equipments like switches/routers are concerned, no changes are warranted.

For that matter even wifi is a viable option  to consider for higher speeds over100 Mbps for the LAN users.  Now a days you get wifi upto even over500 Mbps speed to suffice the power users requirements.

Category1/2/3/4/5/6 – a specification for the type of copper wire (most telephone and network wire is copper) and jacks. The number (1,3,5, etc) refers to the revision of the specification and in practical terms refers to the number of twists inside the wire (or the quality of connection in a jack).

CAT1 is typically telephone wire. This type of wire is not capable of supporting computer network traffic and is not twisted. It is also used by phone companies who provide ISDN, where the wiring between the customer's site and the phone company's network uses CAT1 cable.

CAT2, CAT3, CAT4, CAT5 and CAT6 are network wire specifications. This type of wire can support computer network and telephone traffic. CAT2 is used mostly for token ring networks, supporting speeds up to4 Mbps. For higher network speeds (100Mbps plus) you must use CAT5 wire, but for10Mbps CAT3 will suffice. CAT3, CAT4 and CAT5 cable are actually4 pairs of twisted copper wires and CAT5 has more twists per inch than CAT3 therefore can run at higher speeds and greater lengths. The "twist" effect of each pair in the cables will cause any interference presented/picked up on one cable to be cancelled out by the cable's partner which twists around the initial cable. CAT3 and CAT4 are both used for Token Ring and have a maximum length of100 meters.

CAT6 wire was originally designed to support gigabit Ethernet (although there are standards that will allow gigabit transmission over CAT5 wire, that's CAT5e). It is similar to CAT5 wire, but contains a physical separator between the4 pairs to further reduce electromagnetic interference.

These are some category of twisted pair cables.

CAT refer to category.

each higher category support more data rates (give you more speed)

the development applied in CAT5 is the number of twists made in the meter of length.

Both Cat5 and  Cat6 are twisted pair cables that use copper wires,4 twisted pairs in each cable. The major difference of both are speed. We will get the speed only up to1000 Mbps with the frequency of00 Mhz in cat5 cables. In cat6, it will be10 Gbps over a33-55 meters with the frequency of up to250 MHz.

About Category (CAT)5 cables :

IT transmits at100MHz frequencies, providing a rated line speed of up to100Mbit/s and a max cable segment length of100 meters. Most Category5 cables, designed for early networks, only used two twisted pairs. Older Category5 cables continue to make up the bulk of the world’s network infrastructure.------------------

About Category (CAT)6 cables :

The mainstream adoption of Gigabit Ethernet (1000BASE-T) required new industry-standard cables capable of transmitting at a higher frequency of250 MHz. Category6 cable uses thicker-gauge wire, increased shielding, and more pair twists per inch to reduce signal noise and interference. The tighter specifications guarantee that100-meter runs of Category6 are capable of1000 Mbit/s transfer speeds.10-Gigabit Ethernet speeds are achievable when reducing cable lengths to less than50 meters.

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Cat6 cables, also called Category6 or Cat6 cables, provide lower crosstalk, a higher signal-to-noise ratio, and are suitable for10GBASE-T (10-Gigabit Ethernet), while Cat5e cables support only up to1000BASE-T (Gigabit Ethernet). As a means of future-proofing your network, Cat6 is generally a better choice and worth the small premium in price. Cat5e and Cat6 cables are both backwards compatible, which means newer Cat6 cables can be used with older Cat5e, Cat5 and even Cat3 equipment.

Cat5 is the slowpoke of the bunch. It can handle10/100 Mbps speeds (Fast Ethernet) at up to100 MHz bandwidth. That's a lot of numbers, but what it means is "slow and obsolete". New installations don't even use it, and it's on its way out, sadly...that's sadly for the cable, not for you. For the savvy cable connoisseur there are newer, better, faster, stronger options out there. That's why we at CableOrganizer.com do not sell Cat5 cable and we don't advise you to buy them. That is, if you can even find any...like at a garage sale or something, maybe.

Category6 is a major improvement over Cat5e. It's really just the bee's knees. It's suitable for up to10 gigabit Ethernet at250 MHz. To even better tackle the issue of that pesky crosstalkin', Cat6 cable has an internal separator that isolates pairs from one another. For those who want to "future-proof" their residential or commercial network as much as possible without a significant cost increase, Cat6 is a great choice. That doesn't mean it'll protect your network from cyborgs from the future or anything, it just means it will keep it up to date for longer when the "next big thing" comes along

Hopefully, this brief guide helped you get to know your Cat cables.

Cat5 cable is broken into two separate categories: Cat5 and Cat5E cables. Cat5 has become obsolete in recent years, due to its limitations compared to Cat5E and Cat6 cables. Although the Cat5 cable can handle up to 10/100 Mbps at a 100MHz bandwidth (which was once considered quite efficient), the newer versions of Cat cables are significantly faster.

Cat5E cable (which stands for “Cat5 Enhanced”) became the standard cable about 15 years ago and offers significantly improved performance over the old Cat5 cable, including up to 10 times faster speeds and a significantly greater ability to traverse distances without being impacted by crosstalk.

Cat6 cables have been around for only a few years less than Cat5E cables. However, they have primarily been used as the backbone to networks, instead of being run to workstations themselves. The reason for this (beyond cost) is the fact that, while Cat6 cables can handle up to 10 Gigabits of data, that bandwidth is limited to 164 feet — anything beyond that will rapidly decay to only 1 Gigabit (the same as Cat5E).

Cat6A is the newest iteration and utilizes an exceptionally thick plastic casing that helps further reduce crosstalk. The biggest distinguishing difference between Cat6 and Cat6A cables is that Cat6A can maintain 10 Gigabit speeds for the full 328 feet of Ethernet cable.

Ultimately, those who want to have the most “future proofed” cable will want to go with Cat6A. However, for most resident and commercial purposes, Cat5E and Cat6 cables should be more than sufficient.