The Cat comes up to date ...

Cat 5 cable was rated at frequencies ten times those of Cat 3 and was good enough for 10 Megabit (10 Base-T) and 100 Megabit (100 Base-T) data. It was initially thought that Cat 5 systems would also carry Gigabit speeds - but in practice it turned out that a slightly higher specification was needed and so in 1999 Category 5e (e for enhanced) came out.

So here we are today with Cat 5e cable capable of carrying 10 Megabit Ethernet (10 Base-T), 100 Megabit Fast Ethernet (100 Base-T) and Gigabit Ethernet (1000 Base-T) as well as 155 ATM and others such as Token Ring. Cat5e in now the common denominator that will answer 90% of data infrastructure needs for the next ten years.

Thank heaven it finally got simple!

…..Or did it? There are several other cable and 'protocol' technologies around that you'll hear of. But my advice is to read about them here and then forget them - unless you have very specialised needs, in which case talk to a consultant or the technical support specialists of a major manufacturer like KRONE.

The developers have been busy working on Category 6 and Category 7 cabling systems. Cat 7 has only really attracted interest in Germany - it operates at such high frequencies that in its copper form it uses cables a thick as water pipes! - so it will probably end up as an optical fibre only solution.

But here in the UK, Cat 6 is causing considerable confusion. Operating at frequencies much higher than VHF radio, Cat 6 it is pushing twisted-pair cable technology towards its limits - which leads to very skilled installation requirements. Furthermore, the Cat 6 spec isn't yet finished (ratified), so unless you really know what you're doing, don't make the mistake of thinking it's necessarily better than Cat 5e, just because it's a higher number.

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