CAT5 vs CAT6

What is a cable?

• cable is also called as cord, connector or plug.
• cable is two or more wires running side by side and bonded, twisted or braided together to form a single assembly.
• It used to connect one network device to other network devices or to connect two or more computers to share printers, scanners etc.
• The role of cable is to carry an audio or video signal from one device to another.
• Cables don't change the nature of the audio or video signal they carry.

CAT5 cable

• Category 5 cable also known as ethernet cable is a twisted pair cable for carrying signals.
• It consists four twisted pairs of copper wire terminated by an RJ-45 connector.
• CAT5 has a maximum length of 100m, exceeding this length without the aid of bridge or other network device could cause network issues.
• These cables are used in structured cabling for computer networks such as ethernet. Cat 5 is also used to carry other signals such as telephony and video.

Advantages

• It is cheapest cable in market.
• Easy to install.
• It have high transfer speed.
• These cables have versatility. These can be used as two different cable types.

Disadvantages

• CAT5 cables can transfer very limited data.
• The CAT5 network cables are prone to electrical and radio interference.
• Using CAT5 cables you won’t be able to move the computer from one place to another.

CAT6

• CAT6 cable contains four pairs of copper wire and utilizes all of these pairs for signaling in order to obtain the higher level of performance.
• It is a standardized cable for gigabit ethernet and other network physical layers that is backward compatible with the CAT5 and CAT3 cable.

Advantages

• It have very fast network performance and can deliver gigabit speeds.
• It have similar structure of CAT5 cable because of this it can contact with others so that it can produce double the bandwidth of the CAT5 and CAT5e.
• It is upgradable.

Disadvantages

• These cables have higher price.
• CAT6 cable will give full speed if every single component in the network can works at gigabit speed. If one of the components is not gigabit rated than network will operate at the slowest device’s speed.

CAT5 vs CAT6

CAT5	CAT6
CAT5 have 1000 Mbps speed.	Speed is 10 Gbps over 33-55 meters of cable.
These cables are cheaper than CAT6.	These have higher price.
CAT5 cables have lower frequency upto 100 MHz.	These have higher frequency upto 250 MHz.
Cable length is 100 meters.	100 meters for slower network speeds. For gigabit ethernet 55 meters maximum and 33 meters in high crosstalk conditions.
New installation is not applicable.	It is upgradable.

My notes