Types of UTP Cable Configurations

Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP) cables are used for a variety of networking and communication applications. There are many types of UTP cables that all serve a variety of purposes. Learning the types of UTP cables will take a long time.

Category 1

Communication through telephone is used through CAT 1 cables. These cables are not recommended for data transmission.

Category 2

CAT 2 cables transmit data at speeds up to four megabytes per second (Mbps). CAT 2 cables are also not recommended for data transmission.

Category 3

CAT 3 cables can help transmit 16 megahertz (MHz) of data and can carry up to 100BASE-T networking. These cables are unshielded and twisted.

Category 4

CAT 4 cables are also twisted and unshielded. These cables are capable of transmitting 20 MHz of data. Data speed is capable of reaching 16Mbps with these cables. Token ring networks mostly use CAT 4 cables.

Category 5

CAT 5 cables can transmit up to 100MHz of data at speeds of 1000Mbps. A variety of networks use these cables including token ring, 1000BASE-T and 10BASE-T. Local Area Networks (LANs) use these cables for connecting computers.

Category 6

CAT 6 cables are unshielded and twisted that transmit up to 250MHz of data. These cables can transmit data up to one gigabyte (GB). These cables are also backwards compatible with CAT 3 cables.

Category 7

CAT 7 cables transmit 600MHz of data and are backwards compatible with CAT 5 and CAT 6 cables.