What is Twisted Pair Cable ?
Twisted pair cable is a very important network media. It can be used for phones communication and cable Ethernet networks. Twisted pair cabling is a type of wiring in which two conductors of a single circuit are twisted together for the purpose of cancelling out electromagnetic interference (EMI) from external sources. There are two kinds of twisted pair cable, UTP and STP.
UTP means Unshielded Twisted Pair, which is the copper media and inherited from telephony, which can be used for increasingly higher data rates, and is rapidly becoming the de facto standard for horizontal wiring, the connection between, and including, the outlet and the termination is the communication closet.
Advantages/ Disadvantages of UTP:
- They are very flexible, low codt media, and can be used for either voice or data communications.
- The main disadvantage with UTP is the bandwidth. We cannot achieve high bandwidth with UTP cables.
STP:
STP cable is Shielded Twisted Pair copper conductive netting or casing, performed with individually or with external conductive shield around all pairs. It is heavier and more difficult to manufacture, but it can extraordinarily enhance the signalling rate in a given transmission plot. Twisting gives cancelation of magnetically induced fields and currents on a pair of conductors.
Advantages/Disadvantages of STP cable:
- The main advantage of STP is that it ensures greater protection from all types of external interference that Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP) cable.
- The disadvantage is , it is more expensive than UTP cable.
Types of UTP Cables:
| UTP Category | Data Rate | Max. Length | Application | |
| CAT1 | Up to 1 Mbps | – | Old Telephone Cables | |
| CAT2 | Up to 4 Mbps | – | Token Ring Network | |
| CAT3 | Up to 10 Mbps | 100m | Token Ring and 10BaseT Ethernet | |
| CAT4 | Up to 16 Mbps | 100m | Token Ring Network | |
| CAT5 | Up to 100 Mbps | 100m | Token Ring, Ethernet, Fast Ethernet | |
| CAT5e | Up to 1 Gbps | 100m | Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet | |
| CAT6 | Up to 10 Gbps | 100m | Gigabit Ethernet, 10G Ethertnet | |
| CAT6a | Up to 10 Gbps | 100m | Gigabit Ethernet, 10G Ethernet | |
| CAT7 | Up to 10 Gbps | 100m | Gigabit Ethernet, 10G Ethernet | |
| CAT8 | Up to 40 Gbps | 30m | 40G Ethernet |
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