What is the Difference Between Cat5 and Cat6?

For anyone interested in network cabling whether professionally or in a personal, at-home situation you have no doubt stumbled upon terms like Cat5, Cat5e, Cat6 and perhaps wondered what these terms mean and what is the difference between them.

Each of these terms (Cat5, Cat5e and Cat6) refer to a category of cabling that is typically used in Ethernet computer networking to provide signal transfer for the network. Along with the capacity to carry computer network signals, these cables can also be used to carry telephone, voice, data, fax and video signals.

Cat5

Cat5 was for many years the cable standard used for network installations. The cable was designed to handle up to 10/100 Mbps speeds. As networking technology improved in performance, speed and efficiency, Cat5 became obsolete and is rarely used in new installations.

Cat5e

The response to the need for faster, higher quality cabling to meet the demands of Gigabit Ethernet was the Cat5 ‘enhanced’ (or Cat5e) cable. Cat5e was an improvement on the initial performance standards and limits of the Cat5. Cat5e can handle up to 1000 Mbps at 100 Mhz. In addition, Cat5e demonstrates better performance at eliminating electromagnetic interference between two sets of unshielded twisted wire pairs within the cable, also commonly known as ‘crosstalk’.

Cat6

Again, with increases in network performance and speeds, the need for a higher capacity cable has been answered by the newer Category 6 (or Cat6) cable. The Cat6 is essentially an improvement over it’s predecessor in its handling of network speed. Cat6 is able to handle speeds up to 10 Gigabit Ethernet at 250 Mhz, and represents greater capacity for the elimination of crosstalk and twisted pair interference.

Cat6 will continue to be improved upon an will obsolete Cat5 completely in time, but for now Cat5e and Cat6 are the standards for structured cabling solutions.

TXM manufactures top quality Cat5e and Cat6 cables, data patch panels, connectors and couplers to make sure you have the highest performance for your network installations.