Categories of Twisted Pair Cable

Submitted By: Anuj Dhiman (321/08) Anuradha Rana (322/08) Arpit Goel (323/08)

Transmission Media

Guided media

Unguided media

Parallel Wires

Twisted Pair

Coaxial cables

Optical Fibre

Categories
The Electronic Industries Association ( EIA) has developed standards to classify unshielded twisted-pair cable into seven categories. Categories are determined by cable quality with 1 as lowest and 7 as highest.

Category 1 cable (Cat 1)

Also known as voice-grade copper is used in earlier times.

Used for voice networks that carries only voice traffic example telephones. "Level 1" was a grade of unshielded twisted pair cabling designed for telephone communications. Data rate is less than 0.1 Mbps.

Category 2 cable Cat 2, is capable of transmitting voice data at up to 4 Mbit/s. It was use in token ring networks and in telephone networks but it is no longer commonly used.

Category 3 cable Cat 3, is an unshielded twisted pair (UTP) cable designed to reliably carry data up to 10 Mbit/s, with a possible bandwidth of 16 MHz. Category 3 was a popular cabling format among computer network administrators in the early 1990s. Cat 3 is currently still in use in two-line telephone systems. It may be used for Ethernet, token ring, or ATM networks.

Category 4 Consists of four unshielded twisted-pair (UTP) wires with a data rate of 16 Mbit/s and performance of up to 20 MHz.

It was used in token ring networks, but is no longer common or used in new installations.
It is used in telephone networks which can transmit voice and data from 12 Mbit/s to 16 Mbit/s.

Category 5 cable (Cat 5) Twisted pair cable Used in structured cabling for computer networks such as Ethernet Also used to carry other signals such as telephony and video Commonly connected using modular connector. Category 5 has been superseded by the Category 5e specification.

T568A Wiring
Pin 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 3 3 2 1 1 2 4 4 Pair 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 Wire Color white/green green white/orange blue white/blue orange white/brown 8 brown 4 1 Pin 2

T568B Wiring
Pair 1 Wire Color white/orange

2
3 4 5 6 7

2
3 1 1 3 4

2
1 2 1 2 1 2

orange
white/green blue white/blue green white/brown brown

Category 6 cable It is a cable standard for Gigabit Ethernet and other network physical layers that is backward compatible with the Category 5/5e and Category 3 cable standards.

Cat 6 features more stringent specifications for crosstalk and system noise.
It provides performance of up to 250 MHz and is suitable for Fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet

Category 7 cable (Cat 7) Data transfer rate is more than 600Mbps. It is a cable standard for Ethernet and other interconnect technologies that can be made to be backward compatible with traditional Cat 5 and Cat 6Ethernet cable. Cat 7 features even more strict specifications for crosstalk and system noise than Cat 6.

Shielding has been added for individual wire pairs and the cable as a whole. Besides the foil shield, the twisting of the pairs and number of turns per inch causes RF shielding and protects from crosstalk.

Individual shielding to each pair

Category 7

Overall shielding to wire