New Categories for Twisted-Pair Wiring-

                Three new categories of referred to when talking about twisted pair wiring categories: Cat5e, Cat-6, and Cat7. Cat5e uses more stringent specifications than Cat5 and offers better performance.  The Cat5e uses more stringent specifications than Cat5 and offer better performance.  The Cat5E standard is approved to “Electronics Industries Association/Telecommunications Industry Association (EIA/TIA)” and the” Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)”.  Cat6 not an official standard, supports frequencies up to 350MHz, about two and a half times the specification for Cat5.  The Telecommunications Industry Association is currently working on Draft 6 for Cat6.  Finally Cat7 uses a copper core wiring that supports frequencies up to 600MHz.  Because of the use of Copper, Cat7 will require shielded wiring rather than unshielded wiring. At this time, Cat7 is a working item and even earlier in the standardization process.

                Depending on the type of wiring you implement, different cable connectors are used interface the wiring segments with the network cards.  RJ45 connectors commonly are used with UTP wiring.  RJ45 connectors commonly used with UTP wiring.  RJ45 connectors look much like phone connectors, but they are about twice as big. In some cases, especially with older token-ring network cards, DB9 connectors look like AUI connectors, expect there are 9 pins rather than 15 pins on the connector