According to different electrical properties, twisted pairs can be divided into Cat3, Cat5, Cat5e, Cat6 and Cat7 twisted pairs. The price of difference between different types twisted pairs is large or even disparity, and there application range are also very different.
Network cabling is currently basically using Category 5 or Category 6 unshielded twisted pair. Although the unshielded twisted pair Cat5 cable can still support 1000Base-T, but it was fading out of the wiring market because its almost the same price as the unshielded twisted pair Cat5e Cable.
Although the price of unshielded twisted pair Cat6 cable is relatively high, but it is very popular with the Super Category 5 cabling system and can support 1000Base-T very well, so it is slowly becoming the new favorite of integrated wiring. The Shielded Twisted Pair Category 7 cable is a new wiring system, although excellent in performance, but price is expensive. Construction is complicated and there are fewer products to choose from, so it is rarely used in wiring engineering.
unshielded twisted pair Cat6 cable can support Gigabit Ethernet very well and achieve a transmission distance of 100m. Therefore, Category 6 cabling systems are widely used for cabling in sub-server rooms, as well as horizontal cabling that is upgraded to Gigabit Ethernet capabilities. According to the international wiring standard ISO 11801, the life expectancy of the cabling system is at least 10 years. As a long-term basic investment, integrated wiring should fully consider the potential needs of the network and the development of the wiring system. Therefore, it is recommended to select Cat6 cable products to build the wiring system under the conditions of funds.
If consider the future application requirements of the network, you should theoretically install the most advanced cabling products, because it is often difficult to re-update after installing the cable. Basically, a cabling system must keep working at least 10 years as a standard to support 4 to 5 generation networks. Device performance updates, if future network devices require better cables to increase data speed.
Then, it is inevitable to replace the Category 5 cable with Category 6 cable, but these cable re-engineering projects are very expensive, so even though the price of Cat6 cable products is slightly more expensive than the Super Category 5 products, in order to reduce the network upgrade problem in the future, categories 6 products are still worth considering.
24AWG UTP Cat5e Patch Cord Network Cable
