Cat 6 Ethernet Cable Speed

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.

Cat 6 ethernet cable speed. And yes these cables are backwards compatible. A cat6 cable is similar to a cat5 ethernet cable it consists of four pairs of twisted copper wire. 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. Cat 6 has to meet more stringent specifications for crosstalk and system noise than cat 5 and cat 5e.

That speed comes with a price however as cat 6 cables are more expensive than cat 5 and cat 5e variants. For example you ll see cables rated as category 5 category 5e category 6 category 7 and so on. Normally it supports a maximum transmission speed up to 1 gbps within 100m. Each cable with a higher number is a newer standard.

Cat 6a the a in cat 6a stands for augmented. Many cat 6 cables also include a nylon spline which helps eliminate crosstalk. 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. In cat 6 cable the spline is not required either as long as the cable tests according to the standard.

Although the spline is not required in cat 5 cable some manufactures include it anyway. Cat 6 supports 10 gigabit ethernet only up to 164 feet of cable length. It consists of four pairs of copper wire which supports up to 10 gbps of ethernet connection. The cable standard specifies performance of up to 250 mhz compared to 100 mhz for 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. While cat6 cable supports 37 55 meters depending on crosstalk when transmitting at a speed of 10 gbps. Cat6 cable is otherwise called category 6 ethernet cable. It s theoretical top speed is 10 gbps over 100 meters.

In the picture above the cat 5e cable is the only one with a spline. As a means of future proofing your network cat6 is generally a better choice and worth the small premium in price. We usually shorten these names to cat 5 cat 5e cat 6 and so on. A cat6 cable has a bandwidth capacity of 250 mhz for example and it offers you speeds of up to 10 gbps.

Ethernet cables are standardized into different categories.