Twisted pair wiring (Cat 6/6A)
Introduction
Category 6 or Cat 6 cable (ANSI/TIA/EIA-568-B.2-1) is a "Standard (technology)" cable standard for Gigabit Ethernet (and other physical layer networking protocols) that is backward compatible with Category 5/5e and Category 3 standards. Category 6 has wave characteristics and specifications to prevent crosstalk and noise. The cable standard is used for 10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX and 1000BASE-TX (Gigabit Ethernet). It reaches frequencies of up to 250 MHz in each pair and a speed of 1 Gbps. The pin connection for the RJ45 connector that in principle has better immunity to interference above 100Mbps is the T568A.[1][2][3].
Cable composition
The cable contains 4 pairs of twisted copper wire, just like previous copper cable standards. Although Category 6 is sometimes made with 23 AWG wire, this is not required; The specification ANSI/TIA-568-B.2-1 clarifies that the cable can be made between 22 and 24 AWG, as long as the cable meets all indicated control standards. When used as a patch cable, Cat-6 typically terminates in RJ-45 connectors, although some Cat-6 cables are inconvenient to terminate in such a manner without special modular parts and this practice does not comply with the standard.
If components from various cable standards are mixed together, signal performance will be limited to the category that all parts meet. Like all cables defined by TIA/EIA-568-B, the maximum for a horizontal Cat-6 cable is 90 meters. A complete channel (horizontal cable plus each end) is allowed to reach 100 meters in length.
Commercial Cat-6 UTP cables for LAN networks are electrically constructed to exceed the recommendation of the IEEE task group, which has been working since before 1997.[4].
In category 6, cabling to work in networks over 250 MHz, the proposed values that must be met are:
Note: This is from left to right, with the plastic latch tab facing away from the viewer.
Category 6A
The TIA approved a new improved performance standard specification for systems with unshielded stranded cables. and braided shielded cables (foiled). The ANSI/TIA/EIA-568-B.2-10 specification indicates cable systems called or more frequently "Category 6A", which operate at frequencies up to 500 MHz (for both unshielded cables and shielded cables) and provide transfers of up to 10 Gbit/s (10GBASE-T). The new specification mitigates the effects of crosstalk. Supports a maximum distance of 100 meters (328 feet). In shielded cable external crosstalk is virtually zero.