Cat6 Cable Speed

Cat6 cable is otherwise called category 6 ethernet cable.

Cat6 cable speed.

However if you ve ever shopped at an electronics store you may have encountered some terms that aren t very familiar such as cat5 cat5e and cat6. Cat5e and cat6 cables are both backwards. 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. 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.

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. While cat6 cable supports 37 55 meters depending on crosstalk when transmitting at a speed of 10 gbps. As a means of future proofing your network cat6 is generally a better choice and worth the small premium in price. It s theoretical top speed is 10 gbps over 100 meters.

Cat 6 supports 10 gigabit ethernet only up to 164 feet of cable length. For 10gbase t speeds the maximum cable length is 55 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. A cat6 cable has a bandwidth capacity of 250 mhz for example and it offers you speeds of up to 10 gbps.

Every connection in your network needs to support the 1 gb speed and in some cases the connection will need to be told in software to use the available speed. Just because you have cat 6 cable doesn t mean you have 1 gb network speeds either. 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.

Beyond the speed distance factor cat 6 has a tighter twist in the cables which allows for two way communication on each pair of wires where cat 5e does not allow this feature. Cat6e or enhanced cat6. It s also compatible with both cat5 and cat5e cables. The one major caveat of cat6 cables is that installation can be tricky as compatibility with 8p8c requires the use of special adapter pieces for optimal performance.

Normally it supports a maximum transmission speed up to 1 gbps within 100m. When connecting to your broadband service one of the most important cables that you can have is your ethernet cable which allows these high speed transmissions to reach your computer. Cat 6 has to meet more stringent specifications for crosstalk and system noise than cat 5 and cat 5e. When used for gigabit ethernet and below the maximum allowable cable length is 100 meters.