What is the difference between Cat5 and Cat6?

Technology has always been evolving; this has given birth to the digital era we are in, which keeps up updated to carry out our modern-day necessities. Cat5 and Cat6 are efficient and fast cabling system which are used for networking. Cat5 has been used for networking for quite some time now. The Cat5 comes with an unshielded with a twisted pair configuration, which is the common Ethernet standard cable. Cat5 is an outdated version, which handles speed up to 100Mbps and supports up to 100 MHZ frequencies. Cat5 is not able to tackle crosstalk issues, and it is ideal for residential installation. Cat6 has features of the new industry standard networking specifications; it is more reliable and faster than Cat5. It handles data transfer speed up to 10 Gbps and supports the frequency of up to 250MHz.It significantly reduces crosstalk issues. Cat6 is ideal for a large scale industrial installations.

Technology has come a long way, and these days, large scale data communication has become the norm. Cat5, for example, has been around the networking space for a while. It comes exposed with a twisted pair configuration, which is common in standard cable for computer networks. It is a system that has become obsolete, as it is a set of twisted cables that are used currently, although it can effectively handle speed up to 100 Mbps and support of up to 100 MHZ frequencies.

An updated specification to Cat5 was later established to meet the needs of contemporary networking. Cat6 came out, and Cat5 became old news. It is faster and consistent. Cat6 follows the new industry standard networking specifications. Unlike Cat5, it deals with transfer speeds up to 10 Gbps. It significantly diminishes crosstalk, which is the reason that older cabling standards were so limited. There is even an updated version of Cat6, which has become the future of data.

Cat5 and Cat6 are standard twisted-pair cables that make use of copper wires for Ethernet, but the two are dramatically different when it comes to their transmission performance. The major difference that exists between the two is the amount of total bandwidth that is available on the cable. The limit of Cat5 is 100Mbps transfer per speed, while Cat6 can be up to 10Gbps, of which is a specification that you can rely on for residential installments.

The previous model Cat5 operates at a frequency of 100MHz, while the advanced model Cat6 operates at a frequency of up to 250MHz, which is definitely of a faster spec than the previous one. The Cat5 is known to adhere only to the 1000Base-T/TX standard, while Cat6 do adhere to the faster 10GBase-T standard of the industry. Speed in Cat5 is not optimal for runs that are longer, while speeds in Cat6 are maintained at a longer distance.