Types
- Cat 6 - 10 Gbps. 2x Performance of Cat 5 & 5e - frequency up to 250 MHz
- Cat 5e - 1Gbps
- Cat 5 - 100MBPs
Conductor
Shielding
- Indoor cables must overcome interference from other wires. So shielding is needed.
- Unshielded cables are generally ok for outdoor use.
Types
- U/UTP (Unshielded Twisted Pair) means the cable consists of 4 unshielded twisted pairs and no outer shielding.
- CAT6A F/UTP (Foiled Unshielded Twisted Pair) means the cable consists of 4 unshielded twisted pairs however it contains an outer foil shield.
- S/FTP (screened/foiled twisted pair) cable, normally a CAT7 cable that has four individually shielded pairs and an outer screen braid around all four pairs.
Crimping
- Video here .
Wire-terminal matching
T-568B is most commonly used.
T-568B T-568A
-------------------------- ------------------------
Pin Color RJ-45 use Color RJ-45 use
--- ------------- -------- ------------- --------
1 Orange Stripe Tx+ Green Stripe Rx+
2 Orange Tx- Green Rx-
3 Green Stripe Rx+ Orange Stripe Tx+
4 Blue Not Used Blue Not Used
5 Blue Stripe Not Used Blue Stripe Not Used
6 Green Rx- Orange Tx-
7 Brown Stripe Not Used Brown Stripe Not Used
8 Brown Not Used Brown Not Used
- The other two colors (blue and brown) may be used for a second Ethernet line or for phone connections.
Straight vs cross-over ends
- Straight-through cable, as its name suggests, connects pin 1 to pin 1, pin 2 to pin 2, pin 3 to pin 3, and pin 6 to pin 6.
- Cross-over cables are used to connect TX+ to RX+, and TX- to RX-, which connects pin 1 to pin 3, pin 2 to pin 6, pin 3 to pin 1 and pin 6 to pin 2.
RJ (Registered jack) Terminals
- RJ-11 is a 6-position, 4-conductor jack used in telephone wiring
- RJ-45 is used for LAN.