Category 5 cable

Pair	Wire	>- | 1	3	> white/green |- | 2	3	> green |- | 3	2	> white/orange |- | 4	1	> blue |- | 5	1	> white/blue |- | 6	2	> orange |- | 7	4	> white/brown |- | 8	4	> brown |}
|+ TIA/EIA-568-B.1-2001 TIA/EIA-568-B TIA/EIA-568-B is a set of three telecommunications standards from the Telecommunications Industry Association, a 1988 offshoot of the Electronic Industries Alliance....  T568B Wiring ! Pin Pair Wire >- | 1 2 > white/orange |- | 2 2 > orange |- | 3 3 > white/green |- | 4 1 > blue |- | 5 1 > white/blue |- | 6 3 > green |- | 7 4 > white/brown |- | 8 4 > brown |} Category 5 The specification for category 5 cable was defined in ANSI American National Standards Institute The American National Standards Institute or ANSI is a private non-profit organization that oversees the development of voluntary consensus standards for products, services, processes, systems, and personnel in the United States.... /TIA/EIA-568-A, with clarification in TSB-95. These documents specified performance characteristics and test requirements for frequencies of up to 100 MHz. Category 5 cable includes four twisted pair Twisted pair Twisted pair cabling is a form of wiring in which two conductors are twisted together for the purposes of canceling out electromagnetic interference from external sources; for instance, electromagnetic radiation from unshielded twisted pair cables, and crosstalk between neighboring pairs.... s in a single cable jacket. This use of balanced line Balanced line Transmission lines are generally unbalanced or balanced. Balanced lines are often operated with differential signaling. Balanced twin-lead is used for radio frequency signals and twisted pair for lower frequencies.... s helps preserve a high signal-to-noise ratio despite interference from both external sources and other pairs (this latter form of interference is called crosstalk). It is most commonly used for 100 Mbit/s networks, such as 100BASE-TX Ethernet Ethernet Ethernet is a family of Data frame-based computer networking technologies for local area networks . The name comes from the physical concept of the Luminiferous aether.... , although IEEE 802.3 IEEE 802.3 IEEE 802.3 is a collection of IEEE standards defining the physical layer, and the media access control of the data link layer, of wired Ethernet.... ab defines standards for 1000BASE-T - Gigabit Ethernet Gigabit Ethernet Gigabit Ethernet is a term describing various technologies for transmitting Ethernet frames at a rate of a Data rate units#gigabit_per_second, as defined by the IEEE 802.3-2005 standard....  over category 5 cable. Cat 5 cable typically has three twists per inch of each twisted pair of 24 gauge American wire gauge American wire gauge , also known as the Brown & Sharpe wire gauge, is a Standardization wire gauge system used since 1857 predominantly in the United States for the diameters of round, solid, nonferrous, Electricity Electrical conduction wire....  copper wires within the cables. Category 5e Cat 5e cable is an enhanced version of Cat 5 that adds specifications for far end crosstalk Far end crosstalk In structured cabling, Crosstalk can refer to electromagnetic interference from one unshielded twisted pair to another twisted pair, normally running in parallel.... . It was formally defined in 2001 as the TIA/EIA-568-B TIA/EIA-568-B TIA/EIA-568-B is a set of three telecommunications standards from the Telecommunications Industry Association, a 1988 offshoot of the Electronic Industries Alliance....  standard, which no longer recognizes the original Cat 5 specification. Although 1000BASE-T Gigabit Ethernet Gigabit Ethernet is a term describing various technologies for transmitting Ethernet frames at a rate of a Data rate units#gigabit_per_second, as defined by the IEEE 802.3-2005 standard....  was designed for use with Cat 5 cable, the tighter specifications associated with Cat 5e cable and connectors make it an excellent choice for use with 1000BASE-T. Despite the stricter performance specifications, Cat 5e cable does not enable longer cable distances for Ethernet networks: cables are still limited to a maximum of in length (normal practice is to limit fixed ("horizontal") cables to 90 m to allow for up to 5 m of patch cable at each end, this comes to a total of the previous mentioned 100m maximum). Cat 5e cable performance characteristics and test methods are defined in TIA/EIA-568-B.2-2001. Connectors and other information The cable exists in both stranded and solid conductor forms. The stranded form is more flexible and withstands more bending without breaking and is suited for reliable connections with insulation piercing connectors, but makes unreliable connections in insulation-displacement connector Insulation-displacement connector An insulation displacement connector or Insulation piercing connector is a connector that pierces the insulation on a wire to make the connection, removing the need to strip the wire before connecting.... s. The solid form is less expensive and makes reliable connections into insulation displacement connectors, but makes unreliable connections in insulation piercing connectors. Taking these things into account, building wiring (for example, the wiring inside the wall that connects a wall socket to a central patch panel) is solid core, while patch cables (for example, the movable cable that plugs into the wall socket on one end and a computer on the other) are stranded. Outer insulation is typically PVC Polyvinyl chloride Polyvinyl chloride, commonly abbreviated PVC, is the third most widely used thermoplastic polymer after polyethylene and polypropylene....  or LSOH Low Smoke Zero Halogen Low smoke zero halogen is a material classification typically used for cable jacketing in the wire and cable industry. LSZH cable jacketing is composed of thermoplastic or thermoset compounds that emit limited smoke and no halogens when exposed to high sources of heat .... . Cable types, connector types and cabling topologies are defined by TIA/EIA-568-B TIA/EIA-568-B TIA/EIA-568-B is a set of three telecommunications standards from the Telecommunications Industry Association, a 1988 offshoot of the Electronic Industries Alliance.... . Nearly always, 8P8C 8P8C The 8 Position 8 Contact plugs and sockets are most regularly used as an ethernet connector. 8P8C connectors are typically used to Electrical_termination twisted pair cable....  modular connector Modular connector Modular connector is the name given to a family of electrical connectors examples of which are pictured. These connectors were originally used in telephone wiring.... s, often incorrectly referred to as "RJ-45 Registered jack A Registered jack is a standardized physical Network Interface ? both jack construction and wiring pattern ? for connecting telecommunications, or data equipment or computer networking equipment to a service provided by a local exchange carrier, a long distance carrier, or a data network in the case of the RJ45 connector.... ", are used for connecting category 5 cable. The specific category of cable in use can be identified by the printing on the side of the cable. The cable is terminated in either the T568A scheme or the T568B scheme. It doesn't make any difference which is used as they are both straight through (pin 1 to 1, pin 2 to 2, etc); however mixed cable types should not be connected in series as the impedance per pair differs slightly and could cause signal degradation. The article Ethernet over twisted pair describes how the cable is used for Ethernet, including special "cross over" cables Ethernet crossover cable An Ethernet crossover cable is a type of Ethernet cable used to connect computing devices together directly where they would normally be connected via a network switch, network hub or router, such as directly connecting two personal computers via their Computer networking adapters.... . Bending radius Most Cat.5 cables can be bent at a radius approximately 4 times the diameter of the cable. Electrical characteristics for Cat.5e UTP Property Nominal Value Tolerance Unit ref Characteristic impedance Characteristic impedance The characteristic impedance or surge impedance of a uniform transmission line, usually written , is the ratio of the amplitudes of a single pair of voltage and current waves propagating along the line in the absence of reflections....  @ 100 MHz Hertz The hertz is a measure of frequency per unit of time, or the number of list of cycles per second. It is the SI base unit of frequency in the International System of Units , and is used worldwide in both general-purpose and scientific contexts....   100 ± 15 Nominal Real versus nominal value In economics, nominal value refers to any price or value expressed in money of the day, as opposed to real value, which adjusts for the effect of inflation....  characteristic impedance Impedance Impedance may refer to:*the ratio of the voltage phasor to the electric current phasor, as in**Electrical impedance, a measure of opposition to time-varying electric current in an electric circuit....  @ 100 MHz Hertz The hertz is a measure of frequency per unit of time, or the number of list of cycles per second. It is the SI base unit of frequency in the International System of Units , and is used worldwide in both general-purpose and scientific contexts....   100 ± 5 DC-Loop resistance Copper cable certification File:Cable-tester-and-analyzer-0d.jpgIn copper twisted pair wire networks, copper cable certification is achieved through a thorough series of tests in accordance with Telecommunications Industry Association or International Organization for Standardization standards....   = 0.188 Velocity ratio 0.64 Propagation delay Propagation delay NetworkingPropagation delay is defined as the amount of time it takes for a certain number of bytes to be transferred over a medium. Propagation delay is the distance between the two routers divided by the propagation speed....   4.80-5.30 Delay skew Copper cable certification File:Cable-tester-and-analyzer-0d.jpgIn copper twisted pair wire networks, copper cable certification is achieved through a thorough series of tests in accordance with Telecommunications Industry Association or International Organization for Standardization standards....  < 100 MHz <0.20 Capacitance Capacitance In electromagnetism and electronics, capacitance is the ability of a body to hold an electrical charge.Capacitance is also a measure of the amount of electric charge stored for a given electric potential....  at 800 Hz 52 Inductance Inductance Inductance is the property in an electrical circuit where a change in the current flowing through that circuit induces an Electromotive force that opposes the change in current ....   525 Cutoff frequency Cutoff frequency In physics and electrical engineering, a cutoff frequency, corner frequency, or break frequency is a boundary in a system's frequency response at which energy flowing through the system begins to be reduced rather than passing through....   50323 Max tensile load, during installation 100 Wire size AWG American wire gauge American wire gauge , also known as the Brown & Sharpe wire gauge, is a Standardization wire gauge system used since 1857 predominantly in the United States for the diameters of round, solid, nonferrous, Electricity Electrical conduction wire.... -24 Maximum current per conductor 0.577 Temperature operating -55 to +60 Dielectric Example materials used as dielectric in the cable: >

Individual twist lengths

Environmental ratings

See also

• Category 6 cable
  Category 6 cable
  
  Category 6 cable, commonly referred to as Cat-6, is a cable standard for Gigabit Ethernet and other network protocols that is backward compatible with the Category 5 cable and Category 3 cable standards....
  
• Category 7 cable
  Category 7 cable
  
  Category 7 cable , , is a cable standard for Ethernet and other interconnect technologies that can be made to be backwards compatible with traditional Category 5 cable and Category 6 cable Ethernet cable....
  
• American wire gauge
  American wire gauge
  
  American wire gauge , also known as the Brown & Sharpe wire gauge, is a Standardization wire gauge system used since 1857 predominantly in the United States for the diameters of round, solid, nonferrous, Electricity Electrical conduction wire....
   (AWG)

Further reading