Twisted-pair cable
Insulated conductors such as those used in communications cable are often provided as twisted pairs consisting of two insulated conductors twisted about each other to form a two conductor group. Telecommunication networks commonly use twisted pair exchange cables to transmit voice and data signals between central offices and the individual end users. Twisted pair cables are used to distribute signals in a wide variety of applications. The most common traditional use of twisted pair wires and cables is probably for the distribution of telephone signals, analog voice and digital voice. Twisted pair cables are also commonly used in local area networks (LANs) for data communications. Different applications require different performance standards and twisted pair cable classifications have been established for unshielded twisted pair cables by the Electronic Industries Association. Category 1 cable are suitable for POTS, analog voice and digital voice. Category 2 is suitable for 1.44 Mbps ISDN and T1 while Category 3 is suitable for 10BASE-T. Categories 4 and 5 are intended for higher speed applications. Local area networks (LANs) often use unshielded twisted pair (UTP) cables as transmission lines for high frequency communication of data between devices. The UTP cable often has four twisted pairs, each pair including two conductors or wires. In data transmission, the signal originally transmitted through the data transfer media is not necessarily the signal received. The received signal will consist of the original signal after being modified by various distortions and additional unwanted signals that affect the original signal between transmission and reception. Unshielded Twisted Pair cable or UTP is a popular and widely used type of data transfer media. UTP is a very flexible, low cost media, and can be used for either voice or data communications. The wide acceptance and use of UTP for data and voice transmission is primarily due to the large installed base, low cost and ease of new installation. Another important feature of UTP is that it can be used for varied applications, such as for Ethernet, Token Ring, FDDI, ATM, EIA-232, ISDN, analog telephone (POTS), and other types of communication. Category 5 cables (CAT 5) are widely used to transmit signals between computers and various telecommunications, networking and display devices. CAT5 comprises four unshielded or shielded twisted pairs, each of the twisted pairs comprising two individual conductors (one for running a positive signal and one for an inverted signal). Each individual conductor is twisted together to form one pair of conductors. Four pairs of conductors are bundled together to form twisted pair cable.
Twisted-pair cable product listings
Twisted pair cabling is a form of wiring in which two conductors are wound together for the purposes of canceling out electromagnetic interference (EMI) from external sources, electromagnetic radiation from the UTP cable, and crosstalk between neighboring pairs.
Twisted pair cables
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