Types of Copper Cabling

Pick up any larger cabling catalog, and you will find myriad types of copper cables. However, many of these cables are unsuitable for data and voice communications. Often, cable is manufactured with specific purposes in mind, such as audio, doorbell, remote equipment control, or other low-speed, low-voltage applications. Cable used for data communications must support high-bandwidth applications over a wide frequency range. Even for digital telephones, the cable must be chosen correctly.

Many types of cable are used for data and telecommunications. The application you are using must be taken into consideration when choosing the type of cable you will install.Table 1 lists some of the historic and current copper cables and common applications run on them. With the UTP cabling types found in Table 1, applications that run on lower-grade cable will also run on higher grades of cable (for example, digital telephones can be used with Category 3, 4, 5, 5e, 6, or 6A cabling). Category 1, 2, 4, and 5 are no longer recognized by ANSI/TIA-568-C and should be avoided, but they are described below for historical purposes.

Table 1: Common Types of Copper Cabling and the Applications That Run on Them 

Cable Type	Common Applications
UTP Category 1 (not supported by ANSI/TIA-568-C)	Signaling, doorbells, alarm systems
UTP Category 2 (not supported by ANSI/TIA-568-C)	Digital phone systems, Apple LocalTalk
UTP Category 3	10Base-T, 4Mbps Token Ring
UTP Category 4 (not supported by ANSI/TIA-568-C)	16Mbps Token Ring
UTP Category 5 (not supported by ANSI/TIA-568-C)	100Base-TX, 1000Base-T
UTP Category 5e	100Base-TX, 1000Base-T
UTP Category 6	100Base-TX, 1000Base-T
UTP Category 6A	100Base-TX, 1000Base-T, 10 Gigabit Ethernet
Multi-pair UTP Category 3 cable	Analog and digital voice applications; 10Base-T
25 pair UTP Category 5e cable	10Base-T, 100Base-T, 1000Base-T
Shielded twisted-pair (STP or U/FTP)	4Mbps and 16Mbps Token Ring
Screened twisted-pair (ScTP or F/UTP)	100Base-TX, 1000Base-T, 10 Gigabit Ethernet
Coaxial RG-8	Thick Ethernet (10Base-5), video
Coaxial RG-58	Thin Ethernet (10Base-2)
Coaxial RG-59	CATV (community antenna television, or cable TV)
Coaxial RG-6/U	CATV, CCTV (Closed Circuit TV), satellite, HDTV, cable modem
Coaxial RG-6/U Quad Shield	Same as RG-6 with extra shielding
Coaxial RG-62	ARCnet, video, IBM 3270