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 |
