Different cat cables

How Cat 5 cable works ?

• Category 5 cable, commonly referred to as Cat 5, is a twisted pair cable for computer networks.
• The cable standard provides performance of up to 100 MHz and is suitable for most varieties of Ethernet over twisted pair. 
• It is also used to carry other signals such as telephone and video.
• It can handle 10/100 Mbps speeds (Fast Ethernet) at up to 100 MHz bandwidth.
• The twits in the wire protect the inner conductors from Electromagnetic induction.
• Usually it'll have the colors of white/green,green,white/orange,blue ,white/blue,orange,white/brown and brown.
• Category 5 cables are unshielded, relying on the balanced line twisted pair design.

What is the difference between Cross Cable and Straight Cable ?

Straight Cable :

• Usually straight cable is use to connect different type of devices.
• Connect a computer to a switch/hub's normal port.
• Connect a computer to a cable/DSL modem's LAN port etc
• Both sides (side A and side B) of cable have wire arrangement with same color.

Cross Cable :

• It's usually used to connect same type of devices.
• Connect two computers directly. 
• Connect two switches/hubs by using normal port in both switches/hubs.

	Cat 5	Cat 5E	Cat 6
Frequency	100MHz	100MHz	250MHz
Theoretical Top Speed	100Mbps	1000Mbps	10Gbps
Standard	100BASE-TX	1000BASE-TX	10GBASE-T
Performance	It overtook cat 3 as the ethernet cable from early 2000's	Reduced Cross talk	Internal Separator