The Category of Cables

Cat 3

Category 3 Ethernet cable, also known as Cat3 or station wire, is one of the oldest forms of Ethernet cable still in use today. It is an unshielded twisted pair (UTP) cable that is capable of carrying 10 Mbps of data or voice transmissions. Its maximum possible bandwidth is 16 MHz.

Cat 5

Category 5 (Cat5) Ethernet cable is the successor to the earlier Category 3. Like Cat3, Cat5 is a UTP cable, but it is able to carry data at a higher transfer rate. Cat5 cables introduced the 10/100 Mbps speed to the Ethernet, which means that the cables can support either 10 Mbps or 100 Mbps speeds

Cat 6a

Category 6a cable, or augmented Category 6 cable, improves upon the basic Cat6 cable by allowing 10,000 Mbps data transmission rates and effectively doubling the maximum bandwidth to 500 MHz. Category 6a cables are usually available in STP form, and, as a result, must have specialized connectors that ground the cable.

Cat 7

Category 7 cable (Cat7), also known as Class F, is a fully shielded cable that supports speeds of up to 10 Gbps (10,000 Mbps) and bandwidths of up to 600 MHz. Cat7 cables consist of a screened, shielded twisted pair (SSTP) of wires, and the layers of insulation and shielding contained within them are even more extensive than that of Cat6 cables. Because of this shielding, they are thicker, bulkier, and are more difficult to bend. Additionally, each of the shielding layers must be grounded, or else performance may be reduced to the point that there is no improvement over Cat6.

Cat 5e

The Category 5e (Cat5e) standard is an enhanced version of Cat5 cable, which is optimized to reduce crosstalk, or the unwanted transmission of signals between data channels. This category works for 10/100 Mbps and 1,000 Mbps (Gigabit) Ethernet, and it has become the most widely used category of Ethernet cable available on the market.

Cat 6

The Category Cat6 standard is the latest version. Cat 6 cables are certified to handle Gigabit Ethernet with a bandwidth of up to 250 MHz. Cat6 cables have several improvements, including better insulation and thinner wires. Which results in a higher signal-to-noise ratio, and suitability for environments in which there may be high electromagnetic interference.