Various Types of Ethernet Cable

Also known as: Category 5

Description: Cat 5 cable can support 10 or 100 Mbps (megabits per second) Ethernet. It supports up to 100 MHz (megahertz) of bandwidth.

Also known as: Category 5e, Category 5 enhanced

Description: The "e" in Cat 5e means "enhanced" in comparison to Cat 5 cable. It has all the capabilities of Cat 5. Like Cat 5, Cat 5e supports up to 100 MHz (megahertz) of bandwidth. Cat 5e is manufactured to more stringent standards than Cat 5. It is much less suceptible to near-end crosstalk (NEXT) than Cat 5. Crosstalk is interference generated when the electromagnetic fields generated by different conductors in the same cable interfere with each other. Cat 5e can support "Gigabit" Ethernet, which Cat 5 cannot. All four pairs of a standard 8-conductor cable are needed to provide a 1000 Mbps, also known as a 1 Gbps (gigabit per second), connection.

Also known as: Category 6

Description: Cat 6 cable is more advanced than both Cat 5 and Cat 5e cable and provides the best performance of the three. A key feature of Cat 6 cable is a longitudinal separator, which separates each pair in the cable from the others. This significantly reduces crosstalk (interference caused when the electromagnetic fields generated by different conductors in the same cable interfere with each other), and more than doubles the bandwidth of the cable to 250 MHz (megahertz) as compared to Cat 5 and Cat5e at 100 MHz. Like Cat 5 and Cat 5e, Cat 6 cable can support 10, 100, or 1000 Mbps (megabits per second) data connections. It can also support 10 Gigabit Ethernet, which is 10,000 Mbps.