Cat5 and Cat5e cable prices vary according to brand, quality, length, and materials, as well as the type and amount of any additional shielding included in the manufacture. The cheapest Ethernet cables in this category will generally be unshielded solid Cat5 varieties, while more expensive versions will usually be stranded and shielded Cat5e leads.

At first glance, you cannot necessarily tell whether a given length of Ethernet cable is stranded or solid without cutting through it to find out. However, stranded cable is usually a lot more flexible than solid core cable. Solid cables will often retain some degree of deflection for a while after being bent at a sharp angle. Cat5e Cable Diagram

Stranded conductor (stranded core) Cat5/Cat5e Ethernet cable tends to be used for establishing shorter runs between temporary or easily movable wired networks. Small office networks, such as those linking computers to a router via a short Cat5e patch cable or similar will generally be fine using stranded Ethernet wiring. Most standard Ethernet patch cables at lengths of 50 feet or less will tend to have stranded conductors. Cat5 cable is designed to carry data over a wired network connection at speeds of 10 Mbps (Ethernet) or 100 Mbps (Fast Ethernet). You will often see this written as 10/100 Ethernet when shopping for Cat5 cable online. This means that if your local network or incoming internet connection runs at between 10-100 Mbps (also known as a 100BASE-T network), Cat5 Ethernet cable should be able to handle the required data throughput at full speed, with no loss or delay. Our kenable outdoor networking cable has FULL COPPER 24AWG twisted pairs and can be used indoor as well as outdoor. Its ideal for long or short runs and is UV resistant thanks to its PE sheath ensuring it wont erode over time like standard networking cables. Our Cat5e cables are also waterproof and can even be buried underground!

The standard assembly for basic Cat5 cable is often U/UTP, while many high-quality Cat5e Ethernet cables are manufactured with at least some form of additional shielding built-in. This shielding helps to protect the carried signal from several forms of interference, minimising the risk of data corruption or network connection loss.In day-to-day practical terms, most users will chiefly be interested in what internet speeds or data transfer speed each standard support. Although the additional shielding provides additional external protection, it doesn’t affect the overall Cat5e cable performance. Thus, both UTP and FTP are still capable of 100Mhz and 1 Gigabit transmission.

Cat5e has a maximum capability of 1 Gigabit Ethernet. The older standard of standard Cat5 had a limit of 100Mb transmission. However, this category of cable is not manufactured anymore. In addition, it is rarely seen in old installations, In rare cases, older phone systems may be wired in standard Cat5 and would not be suitable for Gigabit ethernet. Can Cat5e support 10 Gigabit Ethernet?Cat5 and Cat5e cables are available in a wide variety of different lengths. In most cases, Cat5 patch cables tend to be chosen for reasonably short runs (100ft or less), especially if they are stranded core wires. See to the right for a Cat5e cable diagram, showing the basic construction of different types of Cat5e Ethernet cables. We recommend to use faceplates with full copper cables as oppose to crimping them for our plates see the QS numbers below: