Not only does CAT6 provide significantly lower interference or Near-End Crosstalk ( NEXT) in the transmission compared to CAT5e, it also improves Equal-Level Far-End Crosstalk ( ELFEXT), Return Loss (RL) and Insertion Loss (IL). Regardless of whether a spline is used, CAT6 features more stringent specifications for crosstalk and system noise. Nowadays, CAT6 cables are more flexible, using other methods to reduce noise. In the past, the 250 MHz performance provided by CAT6 was often achieved by using a nylon spline in the wiring, which isolated each of the four twisted pairs, making the cable rigid. Both use copper wires, with typically 4 twisted pairs (8 wires) per cable. CAT6 CrosstalkĬAT5e and CAT6 are both twisted pair cables. CAT6 Speedīecause CAT6 cables perform up to 250 MHz which is more than twice that of CAT5e cables (100 Mhz), they offer speeds up to 10GBASE-T or 10-Gigabit Ethernet, whereas CAT5e cables can support up to 1GBASE-T or 1-Gigabit Ethernet. On both you can drive the same speed, but a 4-lane highway can handle much more traffic at the same time. Think of it as the difference between a 2- and a 4-lane highway. This means that a CAT6 cable can process more data at the same time. CAT6 cables are designed for operating frequencies up to 250 MHz, compared to 100 Mhz for CAT5e. The main difference between CAT5e and CAT6 cable lies within the bandwidth, the cable can support for data transfer. The chance is small that you currently have an internet connection with which you can achieve up to 500 Mbps speed. This is more than sufficient for the speed of by far the most internet connections. CAT6 Bandwidthīoth CAT5e and CAT6 can handle speeds of up to 1000 Mbps, or a Gigabit per second.

Lan cable vs ethernet