Cat 6 Ethernet Cable Speed

A cat6 cable is similar to a cat5 ethernet cable it consists of four pairs of twisted copper wire.

Cat 6 ethernet cable speed.

For example you ll see cables rated as category 5 category 5e category 6 category 7 and so on. Cat 6 has to meet more stringent specifications for crosstalk and system noise than cat 5 and cat 5e. 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. That speed comes with a price however as cat 6 cables are more expensive than cat 5 and cat 5e variants.

In the picture above the cat 5e cable is the only one with a spline. Cat 6 supports 10 gigabit ethernet only up to 164 feet of cable length. Ethernet cables are standardized into different categories. Each cable with a higher number is a newer standard.

And yes these cables are backwards compatible. While the nylon spline helps reduce crosstalk in the wire the thicker sheath protects against near end crosstalk next and alien crosstalk axt which both occur more often as the frequency mhz increases. The cable standard specifies performance of up to 250 mhz compared to 100 mhz for cat 5 and cat 5e. Cat6 cable is otherwise called category 6 ethernet cable.

While cat6 cable supports 37 55 meters depending on crosstalk when transmitting at a speed of 10 gbps. Cat 6a the a in cat 6a stands for augmented. Normally it supports a maximum transmission speed up to 1 gbps within 100m. Twisting the wires together enables the currents to balance i e in one wire the current is moving in one direction and int he other wire of the pair the current is going in the other enabling the overall fields around the.

In cat 6 cable the spline is not required either as long as the cable tests according to the standard. The category 6 augmented cable standard or cat 6a was created to further improve the performance of cat 6 ethernet cables using cat 6a enables 10 gigabit ethernet data rates over a single cable run up to 328 feet. As a means of future proofing your network cat6 is generally a better choice and worth the small premium in price. The ethernet cables for connectivity in most office and home environments rely on twisted wire pairs within an overall cable cat 5 cat 6 and cat 7 all used this format.

The cost is about 20 35 higher than cat6 but the maximum cable length is 100 meters across all systems and conditions for gigabit ethernet. Cat5e and cat6 cables are both backwards. We usually shorten these names to cat 5 cat 5e cat 6 and so on. It s theoretical top speed is 10 gbps over 100 meters.

Cat6 cables also called category 6 or cat 6 cables provide lower crosstalk a higher signal to noise ratio and are suitable for 10gbase t 10 gigabit ethernet while cat5e cables support only up to 1000base t gigabit ethernet.