Cat 6 Cable Ratings

Cat 6 has to meet more stringent specifications for crosstalk and system noise than cat 5 and cat 5e.

Cat 6 cable ratings.

The cat6 cable uses a thicker gauge wire and has an increased shielding. As a result cable manufacturers introduced cat6. Cat 6 ethernet cable 100 ft flat white slim long internet network lan patch cords solid cat6 high speed computer wire with clips rj45 connectors for router modem faster than cat5e cat5 100 feet. Also the wires have more twists.

In cat 6 cable the spline is not required either as long as the cable tests according to the standard. The cable needed to be capable of transmitting at a higher frequency of 250 mhz. The typical cat 5a cable only has a 100mhz bandwidth. 4 8 9 785 customer ratings 95 of the ratings are 4 stars or 5 stars.

In the picture above the cat 5e cable is the only one with a spline. Although the spline is not required in cat 5 cable some manufactures include it anyway. That speed comes with a price however as cat 6 cables are more expensive than cat 5 and cat 5e variants. Some of these ratings include cl cm cables cmp cables and cmr cables commonly referred to as general purpose residential communications plenum and communications riser respectively.

That said cat 6 cable works just fine for pretty much any use you would expect from a cat 5 cat 5e or. Cat 6 supports 10 gigabit ethernet only up to 164 feet of cable length. Category 6 cable cat 6 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. The cable standard specifies performance of up to 250 mhz compared to 100 mhz for cat 5 and cat 5e.

Understanding cable jacket ratings. The category 6 augmented cable standard or cat 6a was created to further improve the performance of cat 6 ethernet cables using cat 6a enables 10 gigabit ethernet data rates over a single cable run up to 328 feet. This ethernet cable features four stranded twisted pairs with pvc jackets 50 micron gold plated connectors and copper clad aluminum conductors. Category 6 cable is specifically designed for 1000 base t gigabit ethernet or higher speeds note 1.

Category 6 network cable is quickly becoming the main choice for residential and business installs for new construction. Cl cm cmr and cmp so you need some cable to run for a new ethernet or home theater in your home and you know exactly what type and length of cable you need 50 feet of cat6 cable 15 feet of high speed hdmi cable whatever it might be. There are a few other ratings for communications cable that apply to outdoor environments but that is a topic for a future blog.