CAT5e

Category 5 cable, commonly referred to as CAT5, is a twisted pair cable for carrying signals (such as data, telephony or/and video).
This type of cable is used in structured cabling for computer networks such as Ethernet.
The cable standard provides performance of up to 100 MHz and is suitable for...

10BASE-T (TP Ethernet),
100BASE-TX (Fast Ethernet), and
1000BASE-T (Gigabit Ethernet).

10BASE-T is also known as EoTP i.e. Ethernet over Twisted Pair.

10BASE-T

The name 10Base-T is derived from several aspects of the physical medium. The 10 refers to the transmission speed of 10 Mbps. The base is short for baseband, which means that only one Ethernet signal is present on the send and/or receive pair (i.e., there is no multiplexing as with broadband transmissions). The T comes from twisted pair.

It is the Ethernet wiring standard for 10 Mbps (megabits per second) for a maximum distance of approximately 100 meters per segment over UTP i.e. Unshielded Twisted Pair cables terminated with RJ-45 connectors.

The cable consists of two pairs of unshielded, but insulated twisted wires. One pair is for transmitting data. and the other for receiving data. The cable is most commonly Cat 5, but it can also be Cat 3 or Cat 4. Unlike earlier Ethernet standards (e.g., 10Base5 and 10Base2, 10Base-T does not specify the exact type of wiring to be used.

10Base-T was the first vendor-independent standard implementation of Ethernet on twisted pair wiring. The currently most commonly used form of Ethernet is 100Base-T, also referred to as fast Ethernet, which can accommodate data transfer speeds of up to about 100Mbps. The newer gigabit Ethernet supports data rates of one gigabit (1,000 megabits) per second.



LAN cables are generically called UTP (Unshielded Twisted Pair or in the new ISO/IEC designation U/UTP) and are identified with a category rating. When installing new cable, unless there is a very good reason not to, you should be using category 5e or 6 UTP which is rated for 10mb, 100mb or Gigabit LAN operation. If you are moving to the exotic world of 10G LAN you will need category 6a wiring to go the full 100m (~330ft).

By definition, 10Base-T requires that twisted-pair wiring has an impedance of 100 ohms. Pre-10Base-T hubs and adapters may be configurable within an impedance range of anywhere between 75 and 150 ohms.




Network specialists also have many problems making 10Base-T compliant cables. To connect a file server or netstation to a hub, the correct 10Base-T cable must be used. An RJ-45 connector is used at both ends of the twisted-pair cable, which consists of four wires (two pairs). Following are the pin-outs for the cable:

(male/connector)                  (female/jack)
+----------------+                   +----------------+
| Pin 1 TD+ |-------------------| RD+ Pin 1 ---|
| Pin 2 TD-  |-------------------| RD- Pin 2 ---|
| Pin 3 RD+ |-------------------| TD+ Pin 3 ---|
| Pin 4 | | Pin 4 ---|
| Pin 5 | | Pin 5 ---|
| Pin 6 RD- |--------------------| TD- Pin 6 ---|
| Pin 7 | | Pin 7 ---|
| Pin 8 | | Pin 8 ---|
+----------------+                   +----------------+

or

(male/connector)                  (female/jack)
+----------------+                   +----------------+
| Pin 1 RD+ |-------------------| TD+ Pin 1 ---|
| Pin 2 RD-  |-------------------| TD- Pin 2 ---|
| Pin 3 TD+ |-------------------| RD+ Pin 3 ---|
| Pin 4 | | Pin 4 ---|
| Pin 5 | | Pin 5 ---|
| Pin 6 TD-  |-------------------| RD- Pin 6 ---|
| Pin 7 | | Pin 7 ---|
| Pin 8 | | Pin 8 ---|
+----------------+                  +----------------+

Eicsson's

CAT 5 - The TWIST
UTP cable is manufactured in various different categories. Each category indicates the
performance capability of that cable. The word "Category" is abbreviated to "CAT". Hence
Category 3 cable is CAT 3 cable and Category 5 cable is CAT 5 cable.
CAT 5 refers to cables consisting of 4 Unshielded Twisted Pairs ( UTP ) of 24 AWG bare
copper. The performance for these cables & connectors is specified up to 100 MHz and
data rates of 100 Mbps.
The Color code shall be as follows
Pair 1 Blue-White Extruded Blue stripe on White
Pair 2 Orange-White Extruded Orange stripe on White
Pair 3 Green-White Extruded Green stripe on White
Pair 4 Brown-White Extruded Brown stripe on White
Table 1 : CAT - 5 Color Codes

The heart of CAT5 UTP cable comprises of four pairs of carefully twisted pairs of copper
wire, insulated with carefully chosen themoplastic insulation to provide high bandwidth, SCaT
SCaT Seconds

Sat Updates
Channel Changes
Channel Guide
Channel Reach

low attenuation and low crosstalk. Low crosstalk ensures that signal leakage from one wire
into the neighbouring ones, is minimal.

5 & 5E DIFFERENCE
The differences between Category 5 and Category 5e are in their transmission
performance. Category 5e components are most suitable for a high-speed Gigabit
Ethernet. While Category 5 components may function to some degree in a Gigabit
Ethernet, they perform below standard during high-data transfer scenarios.
To support Gigabit Etherent, a higher performance version of CAT 5, enhanced CAT-5 or
CAT-5e has been added to the standards. CAT 5e adds new performance requirements to
permit higher speed network operation.
Parameter CAT 5 100 MHz CAT 5E 100 MHz
Attenuation 24.0dB 24.0dB
Next 27.1dB 30.1dB
Psnext N/A 27.1dB
Elfext 17.0dB 17.4dB
Pselefext 14.dB 14.4dB
ACR (derived) 3.1dB 6.1dB
PSACR(derived) N/A 3.1dB
Return Loss 8.0dB 10.0dB
Table : 2 Performance Characteristics







http://www.scatmag.com/technical/techarticle_dec02.pdf
http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/lan/hubs/fhub216t/install_config/guide/fh216t/rpt2conn.pdf
http://www.zytrax.com/tech/layer_1/cables/tech_lan.htm