Cables, maximum lengths for ethernet cables and cable categories
CATEGORY |
SHIELDING |
MAX TRANSMISSION SPEED (AT 100 METERS) |
MAX BANDWIDTH |
Cat 3 |
Unshielded |
10 Mbps |
16 MHz |
Cat 5 |
Unshielded |
10/100 Mbps |
100 MHz |
Cat 5e |
Unshielded |
1000 Mbps / 1 Gbps |
100 MHz |
Cat 6 |
Shielded or Unshielded |
1000 Mbps / 1 Gbps |
>250 MHz |
Cat 6a |
Shielded |
10000 Mbps / 10 Gbps |
500 MHz |
Cat 7 |
Shielded |
10000 Mbps / 10 Gbps |
600 MHz |
Cat 8 |
Shielded |
25 Gbps or 40Gbps * |
2000 MHz |
|
SPECIFICATION |
CABLE TYPE |
MAXIMUM LENGTH |
10BaseT |
Unshielded Twisted Pair |
100 metres |
10Base2 |
Thin coaxial cable |
180 metres |
10Base5 |
Thick coaxial cable |
500 metres |
10BaseF |
Fibre optic cable |
2000 metres |
100BaseT |
Unshielded twisted pair |
100 metres |
100BaseTX |
Unshielded twisted pair |
220 metres |