This cable achieves this durability by being built out of clad aluminum (CCA) and unshielded twisted pair (UTP) to maintain performance. Even better, it's available in a variety of lengths from 25 feet to 250 feet, meaning it should be easy to get this cable to whatever you need to plug in. You may have heard about the different types of Ethernet cables, such as Cat5 and Cat6. It’s important to understand the differences between these two types of cables so you can make an informed choice on which type to use. These cables use a very compact casing for a slimmer overall profile. That can be useful in certain data centers and server rooms where space is very limited, and extra space is needed for better airflow, which improves cooling. It can mean more limited shielding, however, so bear that in mind. Flat Cat 5e Cable: Cat 5e Cable is the most used Ethernet cable which supports data transfer speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second (Gbps) and is suitable for most home and small office network applications.

Right now, very few of us have home equipment that supports 10GbE, let alone anything faster. In theory, Cat 5e should cover all your immediate needs, but given that there’s so little price difference between that and Cat 6 or even Cat 6a or Cat 7, it’s worth going for the faster cables now. That goes double if you’re cabling up your home, as it’ll save the bother of replacing cables in the next five years should 10GbE-compatible devices take off. What else do you need to think about? The Cat 6 Ethernet cable supports higher bandwidths than Cat 5 and Cat 5e cables. They’re tightly wound and usually outfitted with foil or braided shielding. Said shielding protects the twisted pairs of wires inside the Ethernet cable, which helps prevent crosstalk and noise interference. Cat 6 cables technically support speeds up to 10Gbps for up to 55 meters. That speed comes with a price, however, as a Cat 6 cable is more expensive than Cat 5 and Cat 5e variants. Cat 6a The answer relates to blueberries of Greenland. Remember a country that has a color – Ireland just wouldn’t work here! The sad little blueberries have to be on something – they are on the land, so they come first before the land (blue before green). Always face the clip away from you so you see just the flat side with the pins. You count (or label) the cables from left to right from 1 to 8 (easy!).

RJ45 Crossover Cable Pinout

One last thing to keep an eye out for: most Ethernet cabling is of the “patch cable” type, which is used for standard connections such as plugging a NAS drive into a router or a games console into a powerline adapter. However, you may also come across “crossover cables”, which can be used to connect computers directly together. Don’t buy one of these by mistake! In addition to their performance specifications, Ethernet cables can also come in different designs. Some Ethernet cable styles are made with specific jobs or environments in mind, so you can tailor your Ethernet cable choice to where you are going to use it. Here are some common examples: Slim and Ultra—Slim Carefully insert the wires all the way into the modular connector, making sure that each wire passes through the appropriate guides inside the connector. Again, make sure you reference the RJ45 pinout diagram at this crucial step until you have it memorized. Cat 7 and Cat 7a cables are high-performing but tend to be useless for most people. Let’s get into why:

Technically, the color of your Ethernet cable doesn’t matter and does not represent any performance characteristics. Cable vendors may assign specific colors to know what the particular cable is being used for, identify the connection type, or distinguish their connection from other vendors. Category 6 cable appeared at the start of the 21st century and remains popular with home networkers. Category 6 runs at up to 250MHz and sometimes used shielding around the bundle of data-carrying wires to reduce interference. Capable of moving up to 1Gbps over 330 feet, or 10Gbps for about half that, Cat 6A upgraded the spec to 500MHz for 330 feet of 1Gbps throughput. (See our primer on Gigabit-speed internet to learn why that 1Gbps threshold is so important.)Although it's not recognized by the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA), Category 7 cable debuted in 2010 and is aimed at data centers and server rooms where top speed counts. Each cable is double-shielded: around each pair of wires and an overall shield around the entire bundle of wires. This extra isolation is needed because the 600MHz frequency used can push a maximum of 10Gbps over 330 feet. More recently, the introduction of Cat 7A cable increases the speed to 1GHz and throughput to 40Gbps, but tops out at 165 feet. Cat 8 Cable: The new 2GHz speed limit