What Are CAT5e and CAT6 Cables?
CAT5e cable is a four pair twisted copper cable that provides network speeds up to 100 MHz and can be used for cable distances up to 100 meters (roughly 300 feet). It can support gigabit ethernet, but is not recommended for businesses transferring large files, using external file servers or businesses using a single cable for their phone and computer. CAT5e has been replaced as the industry standard by CAT6 cable, which provides network speeds up to 250 MHz (or more) and can support 10GB ethernet. CAT6 is the current industry standard for any new office cabling and is backward compatible to previous cabling standards for CAT3, CAT5 and CAT5e cable.