What Separates a CAT 5e from a Typical CAT 5 Cable?

Posted on by Florante Ancheta

 

Cat5 or Ethernet/LAN cable is short for Category 5 cable. Cat5 cable is a modern industry standard for telephone & network wiring. This class of cable is unshielded wire containing four pairs of 24-gauge twisted copper pairs, terminating in an RJ-45 jack. Cat5 cables were developed to maintain theoretical speeds of 10Mbps and 100Mbps. Users may be able to get gigabit speeds on a short Cat5 cable, but it is rare and isn’t guaranteed.

Besides the Cat 5 cable is a Cat 5e cable or Category 5e UTP. Category 5e UTP cabling is the de facto standard for networking infrastructure worldwide. Cat 5e has replaced standard Cat 5 cabling in the marketplace over the past several years, so the terms Cat 5 and Cat 5e have become interchangeable. Although Cat 5e cabling will support Gigabit Ethernet over short runs, this cable class really shines with 100 Megabit network transfer. Conventional devices using this type of cable include PC’s, gaming platforms, internet appliances, 10/100 and Gigabit network cards, hubs, routers, and switches.

What separates a CAT 5e from a CAT 5 cable?

One of the main differences between a CAT 5 versus a CAT 5e cable is its ability to support Gigabit Ethernet, which is 1000Mbs. On the other hand, CAT 5 can only support Ethernet and Fast Ethernet, which is 100Mbps speeds. Also, CAT 5e cable is backwards compatible with CAT 5 cable allowing the two cables to work with each other entirely.

Another benefit with CAT 5e is the reduction of crosstalk. Crosstalk is electrical interference that occurs when a wire’s signal affects another wire’s signal. The CAT 5e cable was designed to improve on the shortcomings of the CAT 5 cable in this respect, significantly reducing crosstalk and any electronic interference that may occur.

Lastly, more bandwidth. Bandwidth is related to network support and its information‐carrying capacity of a system. A higher bandwidth means the information‐carrying potential in a given period. CAT 5e is determined at 100 MHz, and it is this increased bandwidth that allows it to support Gigabit Ethernet.