What is the different between cat5 & cat6 cable?

Question

What is the different between cat5 & cat6 cable?

Answer 1

The difference is that someone found a way to alter the Cat 5 cable slightly by twisting the wire differently.  This causes an increase in speed over distance longer then 100 feet.  Otherwise they are identical, and you can use either for distances of less then 100 feet.

Answer 2

Cat 6 is faster. Cat 6 cables are backwards compatible with cat 5 and cat 5e.

Answer 3

One extra connector, for faster speeds. That's it really.

Answer 4

Category 5 cable, commonly known as Cat 5 or "Cable and Telephone", is a twisted pair cable type designed for high signal integrity. Many such cables are unshielded but some are shielded. Category 5 has been superseded by the Category 5e specification. This type of cable is often used in structured cabling for computer networks such as Ethernet, and is also used to carry many other signals such as basic voice services, token ring, and ATM (at up to 155 Mbit/s, over short distances).

Category 6 cable, commonly referred to as Cat 6, is a cable standard for Gigabit Ethernet and other network protocols that is backward compatible with the Category 5/5e and Category 3 cable standards. Cat-6 features more stringent specifications for crosstalk and system noise. The cable standard provides performance of up to 250 MHz and is suitable for 10BASE-T / 100BASE-TX and 1000BASE-T (Gigabit Ethernet). It is expected to suit the 10GBASE-T (10Gigabit Ethernet) standard, although with limitations on length if unshielded Cat 6 cable is used. Category 6 cable can be identified by the printing on the side of the cable sheath

Answer 5

The general difference between category 5e and category 6 is in the transmission performance, and extension of the available bandwidth from 100 MHz for category 5e to 200 MHz for category 6. This includes better insertion loss, near end crosstalk (NEXT), return loss, and equal level far end crosstalk (ELFEXT). These improvements provide a higher signal-to-noise ratio, allowing higher reliability for current applications and higher data rates for future applications.