Cat5e cables

The whole world seems to be wireless, but Cat5e cables are in more places than you think. Nowadays, on the contrary, more and more households and companies opt for a wired network. Such a wired n...

The whole world seems to be wireless, but Cat5e cables are in more places than you think. Nowadays, on the contrary, more and more households and companies opt for a wired network. Such a wired network is often not only faster, but also many times more stable than a wireless Wi-Fi network. Cat5e cables have a maximum transfer speed of 1 gigabit per second (1,000 Mbps) and a bandwidth of 100Mhz. Want to know more?

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Most popular Cat5e cables of 2021:UTP CAT5e network cable rigid 305M, Cat5e 20M White UTP cable and Cat5e 30M White UTP cable.

When do you use a Cat5e network cable?

There are many different categories ('Cat') of network cable, the main differences being speed and bandwidth. In our blog, we explain exactly the differences between all network categories. Currently, the Cat5e UTP cable (what you're looking at now) is the lowest category on the market, but still extremely popular. A Cat5e cable is suitable for networks with speeds of up to 1 Gbit (1,000 Mbit/s). This is done at a bandwidth, or throughput, of 100 MHz. For most households, this will be sufficient (partly because most network devices do not reach the top speed of the Cat5e network cable; the cable is therefore not the weakest link!).

But there are also definitely reasons to look just a category higher.

What are the disadvantages of a Cat5e cable?

So for most households, a Cat5e cable is perfectly adequate. But there are situations and reasons that you're better off opting for Cat6 or Cat6a. The main disadvantages of Cat5e cables:

Cat5e cable is not shielded. As a result, so-called interference can occur. For example, when the cable is close to a power cable or coaxial cable. The speed is then likely to be reduced. Shielded Cat5e cables are not available with plugs as standard, so for if you suffer from interference it is best to look at Cat6 S/FTP.
The bandwidth of Cat5e cables is only 100Mhz (versus Cat6's 250Mhz). This allows you, for example, to perform less (heavy) network tasks simultaneously (such as streaming, gaming, VOIP applications, etc.).
Network devices are getting faster and faster and you might want to be prepared for the future. Then just opt for Cat6a (10x faster than Cat5e).

Cat5 cable or Cat5e?

This choice is quite simple: Cat5 cables (without the 'e') are in fact hardly made anymore, and we don't supply them either. Cat5e is in fact better in all important respects. The main difference is that Cat5e has a higher throughput of 1,000 Mbit/s. This is 10x faster than the older Cat5 cable. By the way, the 'e' stands for 'Enhanced'.

Interesting articles: Cat5 vs Cat5e | Cat5e vs Cat6 | Which UTP cable to choose | CCA or copper network cable?