Cat5e and cat6 network cables will support speeds of up to 5Gbit/s

The nbase-t alliance has passed the new 2.5gbase-t and 5gbase-t standards through IEEE control. With the new standards, cat5e and cat6 network cables will be able to support speeds of up to 5Gbit/s.

Existing network equipment will not immediately support the standard, the association writes. The first devices that will be able to work with it have already been developed with the new specification in mind. These devices will receive support with a software update.

According to the specifications, cat5e cables up to a hundred meters will support a speed of 2.5Gbit/s and below a hundred meters a good cable can handle a speed of 5Gbit/s. All cat6 cables can transmit 5Gbit/s up to at least one hundred meters.

Nbase-t was founded in 2014 to work on a new standard, which was officially approved by the IEEE-SA Standards Board on September 23. The new standard is registered with the board as IEEE 802.3bz.

The association indicates that the standard was developed because many companies and households have a network of cat5e and cat6 cables. Wireless standards were quickly approaching gigabit speeds and that would make existing UTP cables a bottleneck. For the higher speeds, equipment may have to be replaced, but the existing cabling can remain.

The standard is based on the existing 10gbase-t standard that can deliver speeds of 10Gbit/s over cat6a cables, or over shorter distances over cat6 cables. In order to be able to send 5Gbit/s speeds over the outdated cables, the nbase-t link has halved the transfer speed of the 10gbase-t encoding and divided it by four in the case of 2.5gbase-t.