Network Cables

Identifying Network cables.

RJ45 (Cat6) 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.

RJ11 4 wire connector for telephones (only 2 wires are actually needed for a single phone line)

RJ45 (Cat 5e) = 8 wire connector for computer networks (only 4 wires needed for 100mbps connection).

CAT5e vs. CAT6 Bandwidth

Both CAT5e and CAT6 can handle speeds of up to 1000 Mbps, or a Gigabit per second. This is more than sufficient for the speed of by far the most internet connections. The chance is small that you currently have an internet connection with which you can achieve up to 500 Mbps speed.

The main difference between CAT5e and CAT6 cable lies within the bandwidth, the cable can support for data transfer. CAT6 cables are designed for operating frequencies up to 250 MHz, compared to 100 Mhz for CAT5e. This means that a CAT6 cable can process more data at the same time. Think of it as the difference between a 2- and a 4-lane highway. On both you can drive the same speed, but a 4-lane highway can handle much more traffic at the same time.

CAT5e vs. CAT6 Speed

Because CAT6 cables perform up to 250 MHz which is more than twice that of CAT5e cables (100 Mhz), they offer speeds up to 10GBASE-T or 10-Gigabit Ethernet, whereas CAT5e cables can support up to 1GBASE-T or 1-Gigabit Ethernet.  Ca6 wiring is much larger than Cat 5.

Data Distance:

Standards for cable distance recommend that Cat5, 5e, and 6 cables have a maximum cable segment run length of 100m or 328 feet.