Here's what you need to know. Around your house, you probably have either Cat 5 or Cat 5e wire. Cat stands for category. Cat 6 is cable that's more reliable at higher speeds than Cat 5 or Cat 5e.

Cat 5e cable has got to meet specification requirements up to 100 MHz; Cat 6 takes the spec tighter AND increases that to 250 MHz; and Cat 6a takes it out to 500 MHz. To handle 500 MHz well on a ...

Even though 2.5GBASE-T (using 64B66B, PAM-16 and DSQ128) can technically use 100 MHz Cat-5e wiring courtesy of its 100 MHz bandwidth requirement, this assumes flawless wiring.

A new Ethernet standard that allows for up to 2.5Gbps over normal Cat 5e cables (the ones you probably have in your house) has been approved by the IEEE. The standard—formally known as IEEE 802 ...

The main benefit of purchasing Cat 5 (or Cat 5e cables) is that they tend to be less expensive than their newer counterparts. So, if you don't need the increased speed, Cat 5 cables will work just ...

Sure enough, 80% of the Cat 6 cables they tested from big box stores etc. failed the specification. More surprising, many of them didn’t even pass the Cat 5e specification.