Cat 5 Cable

CAT5 is an Ethernet cable and is a twisted pair type of cable facilitating high signal quality. The term CAT5 is an extended form of Category 5. An enhanced version of CAT5 is CAT5e.

The CAT5 cable consists of four twisted pairs of copper wires covered with a sheath or a jacket. This twisting helps to prevent signals from interference. These cables have three twists per inch and are normally used for 100Mbit networks. Though there are other varieties of CAT5 cables like CAT6 and CAT7, but CAT5 is preferred over them as they are fast as well as less costly.

here are two types of CAT5 cables, solid and stranded. The stranded wire is further subdivided into four pairs while the solid wire is a single wire with a solid core. The solid cables are more suitable for longer distances like a building, while stranded cables are most suitable for shorter distances like home. Stranded cables are more flexible than solid one and can be moved here and there easily without causing any harm to the wire. Stranded cables are less costly at the same time. Solid cables are used because of their best electrical properties and are preferred by the offices looking for wiring under the walls or floors and of course looking for better performance. The RJ-45 connectors are selected depending on the type of cable.

The best time to wire your house is when the house is being built. The 10Base-T cables are required to be preferred over 10Base-2 because later on if you want to connect any other thing like phone, you can easily connect the same.

Before you start to form a small network, there are things that you need to buy and you must always remember. These things are: * The RJ-45 sockets should be there for each and every point. * If you are going to connect more then two computers, an Ethernet hub is also required. * A patch panel should also be present. * Make sure that you have plenty of wires to wire the entire house covering all the point and connecting them at a central location. * You should also have a crimping tool and a cable tester.

While wiring your house always make sure that the cables should be kept away from any power cable in order to get a better network performance.

How to wire the cable?

The very first step is, strip off or expose the cable sheath and then untwist the wire pairs. Now arrange the wires according to the specified color scheme and trim them to an equal length. Insert the wires into RJ-45 end and crimp them using the crimper tool. Finally test for proper connectivity using a cable tester.