Cat 5e Vs 6

Bandwidth precedes data rates just as highways are primarily for circulation. Doubling the bandwidth is like adding twice the number of lanes on a freeway. The trends of the past and predictions for the future indicate that rates have doubled every 18 months. Current applications running at 1 Gb / s are really pushing the limits of category 5e cabling. As streaming media applications such as video and multimedia is becoming common, the demand for faster data rates will increase and create new applications that benefit from the higher bandwidth offered by Category 6. That's exactly what happened in the early 90s when the higher bandwidth of Category 5 cabling compared to Category 3 caused most LAN applications to choose the new media to enable simple, cost-effective more speed LAN applications, such as 100BASE-TX. Note: The bandwidth is defined as the highest frequency up to which positive power sum ACR (attenuation to crosstalk) is greater than zero. The general difference between Category 5 and Category 6 is in the transmission performance and extension of the authorized bandwidth of 100 MHz for category 5e to 200 MHz for category 6. This includes better insertion loss, crosstalk near end (NEXT), return loss, and this same level of end crosstalk (ELFEXT). The improvements, as described, provide a signal to noise ratio, allowing higher reliability for current applications and higher data rates for future applications. Category 6 will eventually supersede category 5e. forecasts of analysts and independent polls show that 85-95 percent of new facilities will be installed with category 6. The fact that category 6 link and channel requirements are backward compatible with Category 5e, it is quite easy for customers to choose category 6 and supersede category 5e in their networks. Applications that worked over Category 5 still work on Category 6. Because of its greater transmission performance and better immunity to external noise, systems operating over 6 cabling will have fewer errors versus category 5e for current applications. That means less packet retransmissions of corrupted or lost data under certain conditions, which translates into higher reliability for category 6 networks compared to category 5e networks. Category 6 will be very effective in the residential market to support higher Internet access speeds while facilitating the more stringent Class B EMC requirements (see also the rules and regulations set by the FCC, Title 47, Part 15). The best balance of category 6, it will be easier to meet the residency requirements in relation to EMC Category 5e cabling. In addition, the growth of streaming media applications in the home increases the need for higher data rates that are supported more easily and efficiently by category 6 cabling.