Ethernet

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Cat 5

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—Category 5 cable supports data rates up to 100 Mbps.

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Cat 5e

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—Category 5e cable supports data rates up to 1 Gbps.

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Cat 6

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Category 6 cable supports data rates up to 10 Gbps up to 55 meters and 1 Gbps up to 100 meters.

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Plenum

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—Plenum cable is used in the plenum space of a building. Any space that handles air circulation in an HVAC system is plenum space, typically above a drop ceiling or below a raised floor. Plenum cable uses low-smoke and low-flame materials for fire prevention.

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Shielded twisted pair

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—STP Ethernet cable uses two or four pairs of copper wire. It uses a foil or braided shield to reduce electromagnetic interference. Depending on the type of cable, each twisted pair may be shielded or a single shield covers all twisted pairs.

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Unshielded twisted pair

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—UTP Ethernet cable uses two or four pairs of copper wire. The twist in the wires reduces electromagnetic interference.

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568A/B

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Ethernet cables are terminated with RJ-45 connectors. The pin-out (which wire connects to which pin) of those connectors is defined in the EIA/TIA 568A & 568B Standards. The difference between 568A and 568B is that the transmit and receive pairs are reversed. This allows for two types of cables, straight-through and crossover.

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Straight-through

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is used to connect a device to the network via a switch or hub. It uses the same pin-out on both ends, whether 568A or 568B.

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crossover cable

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is used to connect one device directly to another, such as two computers, without a switch or hub between them.

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Fiber optic

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Fiber optic cable uses light pulses to transmit data through a glass or plastic core. The cable consists of four layers. The core is surrounded by a cladding that refracts light back into the core. The other two layers are the outer sheath, the part you see, and a strength member or buffer to protect the fiber.

Fiber is not subject to electromagnetic interference, since it uses light to transmit data. Transmission distances are longer and data rates are higher on fiber than they are on copper cable. There are two basic types of fiber, single-mode and multimode. Single-mode fiber carries only one light path, typically sourced by a laser. Multimode carries multiple light paths and is sourced by an LED. Single-mode has a much longer transmission distance than multimode.

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Coaxial

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Coaxial cable is used primarily for cable Internet service and audio/video applications such as cable TV. It has a single copper conductor core surrounded by a dielectric insulator and one or more layers of shielding. The shielding reduces electromagnetic interference. The two most common types of coaxial cable are RG-6 for data and RG-59 for audio/video.

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Category 5

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cable supports data rates up to 100 Mbps.

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Category 5e

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cable supports data rates up to 1 Gbps.

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Category 6

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cable supports data rates up to 1 Gbps up to 55 meters and 10 Gbps up to 100 meters.

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Multimode

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The most commonly used fiber is multimode and supports data rates up to 100 Mbps up to 2000 meters, 1 Gbps up to 550 meters, and 10 Gbps up to 300 meters

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VGA

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— VGA cables connect older analog Video Graphics Adapters to a display. It uses a 15-pin connector arranged in three rows of five pins.

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HDMI

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HDMI cables connect a High Definition Multimedia Interface to a display. It uses a 19-pin connector arranged in two rows. There are different types of HDMI cables. The most commonly used is type A but is usually just referred to as an HDMI cable with no type designation.

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Mini-HDMI

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HDMI type C is usually referred to as mini-HDMI. It uses a 19-pin connector arranged in two rows, like the HDMI type A cable, but it is smaller and the pin-out is different.

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DisplayPort

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—DisplayPort cables connect a DisplayPort interface to a display. It uses a 20-pin connector arranged in two rows of ten pins.

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DVI (DVI-D/DVI-I)

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—DVI cables connect a Digital Visual Interface interface to a display. DVI-D (-D for digital) supports only digital signals. DVI-I (-I for integrated) supports digital and analog signals. There are single-link and dual-link DVI cables. Single-link DVI supports 3.7 Gbps HDTV at 60 frames per second. Dual-link DVI supports 7.4 Gbps HDTV at 85 frames per second.

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Lightning

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—Lightning cables are proprietary to Apple™. They are used to connect Apple™ devices to USB ports. The cable has eight wires and is terminated with a USB connector on one end and a Lightning connector on the other. It can carry both data and power to charge the device. The Lightning connector is reversible, so it can be plugged into the device without regard to which side is up.

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Thunderbolt

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—Thunderbolt is another Apple™-proprietary cable. It comes as either copper or optical cable. The maximum length is 3 meters for copper and 60 meters for optical cable. The connectors are based on the Mini DisplayPort standard, except Thunderbolt version 3 uses a USB-C connector on the peripheral end. It provides both data and power to peripheral devices, most commonly storage and display devices. There are three versions of Thunderbolt. Total throughput for Thunderbolt 1 and 2 is 20 Gbps and Thunderbolt 3 is 40 Gbps

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USB—Universal Serial Bus cables

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connect to a wide variety of peripheral devices. USB 1.1 was the first version in common use. It uses a type-A connector on the PC side and a type-B connector on the peripheral side. There are also mini and micro connectors for smaller devices such as cell phones and cameras. It supports two speeds. Low speed supports data transfer rate of 1.5 Mbps at lengths up to 3 meters. Full speed supports data transfer rates of 12 Mbps at lengths up to 5 meters. It provides power, as well.

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USB-C

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—USB-C is a connector type that is used on USB 3.0 and newer cables.

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USB 2.0

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USB 2.0 maintains the characteristics of USB 1.1 and adds a high-speed data transfer rate of 480 Mbps at lengths up to 5 meters.

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USB 3.0

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—USB 3.0 maintains the characteristics of USB 2.0 and adds SuperSpeed data transfer rate of 5 Gbps at lengths up to 3 meters. The connectors are a bit different, adding pins to some connectors to support the higher transfer rate, as well as adding the type-C connector.

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SATA

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—The Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) cable is the most commonly used hard drive cable. There are different SATA revisions. They all allow a maximum cable length of one meter. SATA revisions 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, and 3.2 support speeds of 1.5 Gbps, 3 Gbps, 6 Gbps, and 16 Gbps, respectively.

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Serial

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—While there are many types of serial cables, the term “serial cable” usually refers to a specific type of cable that confirms to the RS-232 specification. Serial cables are most often used to connect a laptop to the console or management port of a network device, such as a switch, router, or firewall.

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IDE

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—Integrated Drive Electronics is an older interface. The IDE cable is a 40-wire (34-wire for floppy drives) ribbon cable that is connected from the motherboard on one end to one or two drives on the other end.

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SCSI

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—Small Computer System Interface was designed to support a wide variety of device types, so there are different types of SCSI cables. They may be ribbon cables or standard round cables of 50, 68, or 80 wires. Up to 16 devices, including the motherboard or SCSI controller card, may be connected to one SCSI cable or daisy-chained together.