Category 6 unshielded twisted pair utp cable ultra high performance data communications cable suitable for 550mhz high speed applications critical network applications gigabit ethernet fast ethernet broadband audio and video 155mbps atm and 100mbps tp pmd cddi next elfext and rl bandwidth compliant.
Cat 6 utp speed.
As a result cable manufacturers introduced cat6.
The category 3 or cat3 standard was used heavily in the early 90 s for wiring offices and homes.
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.
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.
The cable standard specifies performance of up to 250 mhz compared to 100 mhz for cat 5 and cat 5e.
The cable needed to be capable of transmitting at a higher frequency of 250 mhz.
There are two main physical differences between cat 5 and cat 6 cables the number of twists per cm in the wire and sheath thickness.
Also the wires have more twists.
Unshielded twisted pair utp cable is most certainly by far the most popular cable around the world.
Cat 6a shielded twisted pair stp and which is the better option for supporting 10 gig.
Many once thought copper cabling would never support speeds above 1 gig but cat 6a and cat 7 has proven that wrong and is allowing copper cabling to live on.
As a means of future proofing your network cat6 is generally a better choice and worth the small premium in price.
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.
There has been much debate about cat 6a unshielded twisted pair utp vs.
It s still used in two line phone configurations but has largely fallen out of favor for wired networking thanks to the category 5e cable s superior performance.
Category 6 the mainstream adoption of gigabit ethernet 1000base t required a new industry standard cable.
Cat5e and cat6 cables are both backwards.
The cat6 cable uses a thicker gauge wire and has an increased shielding.
Cat 6 supports 10 gigabit ethernet only up to 164 feet of cable length.
Utp and stp comparison chart.