Category 3 cable

Category 3 cable, commonly known as Cat 3 or station wire, and less commonly known as VG or voice-grade[1] (as, for example, in 100BaseVG), is an unshielded twisted pair (UTP) cable used in telephone wiring. It is part of a family of standards defined jointly by the Electronic Industries Alliance (EIA) and the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) and published in TIA/EIA-568-B.[2][3]

Although designed to reliably carry data up to 10 Mbit/s,[4] modern data networks run at much higher speeds, and Cat 5e or better cable is generally used for new installations.[5] Cat 3 cables may have 2, 3 or 4 pairs.[6]

  1. ^ CompTIA Network+ Review Guide: Exam N10-008. John Wiley & Sons. 28 September 2021. ISBN 978-1-119-80696-7.
  2. ^ Evolution of Cabling Standards: TIA/EIA, ISO/IEC, CENELEC[self-published source?]
  3. ^ Standards Update[self-published source?]
  4. ^ "CCNA: Network Media Types". Cisco Systems. Retrieved 2017-09-05.
  5. ^ Spurgeon, Charles E (2000). Ethernet: the definitive guide. O'Reilly. p. 125. ISBN 9781565929524.
  6. ^ Williams, Lawrence (2020-03-01). "Ethernet Cables Types: Cat 3, 5, 5e, 6, 6a, 7, 8 Wires Explained". www.guru99.com. Retrieved 2023-04-09.