What is the difference between cat 5 and cat 6 network cable?
Difference between a cat 5 5e and 6 networking cable?
Cat5 cable is broken into two separate categories: Cat5 and
Cat5E cables. Cat5 has become obsolete in recent years, due to its
limitations compared to Cat5E and Cat6 cables. Although the Cat5
cable can handle up to 10/100 Mbps at a 100MHz bandwidth (which was
once considered quite efficient), the newer versions of Cat cables
are significantly faster.
Cat5E cable (which stands for "Cat5 Enhanced") became the
standard cable about 15 years ago and offers significantly improved
performance over the old Cat5 cable, including up to 10 times
faster speeds and a significantly greater ability to traverse
distances.
Cat6 cables have been around for only a few years less than
Cat5E cables. However, they have primarily been used as the
backbone to networks, instead of being run to workstations
themselves. The reason for this (beyond cost) is the fact that,
while Cat6 cables can handle up to 10 Gigabits of data, that
bandwidth is limited to 164 feet - anything beyond that will
rapidly decay to only 1 Gigabit (the same as Cat5E).
Cat6A is the newest iteration and utilizes an exceptionally
thick plastic casing that helps further reduce crosstalk. The
biggest distinguishing difference between Cat6 and Cat6A cables is
that Cat6A can maintain 10 Gigabit speeds for the full 328 feet of
Ethernet cable.