The twisting of two insulated wires around each other is known as twisted pair cables. Cables that use twisted pair of wires reduce the Crosstalk between them to a great extent.
As shown in the image, the pair of wires may be surrounded either by a shield, or similar pairs of wires. Each pair is uniquely color coded when packaged in multiple pairs. Different uses such as Analog, Digital, and Ethernet require different pair multiples.
Twisted pair wiring is commonly used to connect telephones and in computer network technology and are classified according to their maximum transmission frequencies. Today, there are basically only two types used and they are Cat3 and Cat5.
Some features of Twisted pair cabling are:
It is flexible and easy to terminate.
For Cat 5e/6/7 UTP the maximum segment length is 100 meters.
10BaseT refers to the specifications for unshielded twisted pair cable (Category 3, 4, or 5) carrying Ethernet signals. Category 6 is relatively new and is used for gigabit connections.
Twisted pair cables are available in two variants:
Shielded Twisted Pair (STP) and
Unshielded Twisted pair (UTP)
Let us look into the details of these two variants.
