Category cable or, Networking cable, is essential for networking or multimedia installations in projects such as higher education, government, corporate, conference rooms, healthcare, houses of worship, digital signage, hospitality and large venue applications. This article will go over the most common and different types of category cables.
This article will go over the most common and different types of category cables.
| Cat 5E | 4 Pair / 24 AWG | 100 Mbps/ 1 Gbps | UTP or F/UTP |
| Cat 6 | 4 Pair / 24 or 23 AWG | 1000 Mbps/ 1 Gbps | UTP or F/UTP |
| Cat 6A | 4 Pair / 23 AWG | 10000 Mbps/ 10 Gbps | UTP or F/UTP |
| Cat 7 | 4 Pair / 23 or 22 AWG | 10000 Mbps/ 10 Gbps | S/FTP |
Category 5E cable offers enhanced capabilities. The "E" stands for "Enhanced" and this cable is very similar to Cat 5 but is built under more stringent testing to eliminate cross talk. These 4 pairs are twisted at different rates. Cat 5E is commonly used and has a bandwidth of 100MHz for 100BaseT applications.
Cat 5E cables are typically is used in AV digital video, digital integration, and many other A/V and telephony applications.
Category 6 cable support a higher bandwidth up to 250MHz. They also are tightly wound and help to prevent cross talk or interference.These cables are standardized for 1GBaseT applications, AV digital video, HDBase T, digital integration applications and more.
Category 6A are becoming increasingly popular because they help to meet demand for the growing number of IP access points and higher data applications exceeding 10 Gbps bandwidth. The "A" stands for Augmented and are also ideal for 625Mhz rated cables for 10GBaseT applications because they deliver superior performance in high bandwidth applications.
Category 7 S/FTP plenum-rated cables helps to meet the demand for the growing number of IP access points, and network security applications exceeding 10 Gigabit Networking (10G) bandwidth over 100m.
This cable is also ideal for Future 4K Resolution Video because they deliver superior performance in high bandwidth applications up to 625 MHz. These cables unlike Cat 5 and Cat 6 have a S/FTP design-shield over shielded pair design
To learn more about category cables for yourself, see what our Product Line Managers have to say by viewing
the West Penn Wire YouTube channel:
