what is unshielded-twisted-pair (utp) cable _ fiber optic training & tutorials - faq, tips & news

7/31/2019 What is Unshielded-Twisted-Pair (UTP) Cable _ Fiber Optic Training & Tutorials - FAQ, Tips & News

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What Is Unshielded-Twisted-Pair (UTP) Cable

January 10, 2011

:: What is UTP Cable?

5Like




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UTP stands for Unshielded Twisted Pair cable. UTP cable is a 100 ohm copper cable that consists of 2 to 1800 unshielded

twisted pairs surrounded by an outer jacket. They have no metallic shield. This makes the cable small in diameter butunprotected against electrical interference. The twist helps to improve its immunity to electrical noise and EMI.

(You can get Cat 5e and Cat 6 UTP Patch Cable from us)

For horizontal cables, the number of pairs is typically 4 pair as shown below.

For backbone cables, the number of pairs will typically be some increment of 25, because multi-pair UTP cables are

constructed in 25-pair binder group. A sample backbone UTP cable is shown below.

:: UTP Copper Cable Conductor Size

The copper conductor of both horizontal and backbone UTP cables are either 22 AWG or 24 AWG. 24 AWG is the most

common size, but higher-performance cables like Category 6 UTP employ the larger 23 AWG copper wires.

:: Solid Conductor UTP Cable and Stranded Conductor UTP Cable

1) Solid Conductor UTP Cable




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Solid Conductor UTP Cable Picture

As its name implies, solid conductor UTP cables have a single, solid conducting copper wire as the conductor. In addition to

being physically stronger and easier to work with, these larger wires have superior electrical characteristics that remain stable

over a wider range of frequencies.

Solid conductor cables have a lower DC resistance and a lower susceptibility to high-frequency effects based on their larger

diameters alone. These properties allow solid conductor cables to support longer transmission runs and higher data rates than

their stranded cable counterparts.

UTP cables used for both horizontal and backbone applications are typically solid conductor cables.

2) Stranded Conductor UTP Cable

Stranded Conductor UTP Cable Picture

Stranded-conductor UTP cables are typically used as patch cables in either work areas or telecommunication rooms. They are

the most common Category-type cables we often directly work with.

Inside the twisted pairs of a stranded cable, each individual conductor is made up of a bundle of smaller-gauge wire strands.

These are arranged so that several wires (commonly 6 or 18) surround a single wire at the bundles center. The outer wires are

wrapped helically around the central wire through a process called stranding. The stranded wires together form a single

conductor with an overall diameter about the same as that of a conductor in a solid cable, but with a much smaller conducting

area (based on the smaller diameters of the conducting wire strands).

The stranding of the wire conductors serves to protect them, and gives stranded cables their flexibility.

:: UTP Cable Applications

UTP cables are mostly used for LAN networks. They can be used for voice, low-speed data, high-speed data, audio and

paging systems, and building automation and control systems. UTP cable can be used in both the horizontal and backbone

cabling subsystems.

:: UTP Cable Categories and Performance Specifications

UTP cables were invented for voice applications. Voice UTP cables only needed to carry analog signals which are very robust

and not easily corrupted by electrical noise or EMI. However, as UTP cables were used for different systems, higher quality




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.

As the applications evolved, different categories or grades of UTP cables were created along these years. Higher category UT

cables are referred to as data grade UTP cables, and low category UTP cables are referred to as voice grade UTP cables.

The following table shows different Category UTP cables, their business applications and corresponding performance

specification.

Note:

TIA/EIA-568 only recognized cables of Category 3 ratings or above. Category 1 cable (Cat 1) and Category 2 (Cat 2) voice-

grade coppers are a misnomer, probably adopted by those who assumed that TIA set up Categories for all types of cables

originally defined by Anixter International, the distributor, under the grades called Levels.

Cat 1 cable is used in earlier times. It is used for typically voice networks that carries only voice traffic example telephones.

Anixter Level 2 (Cat 2) was a grade of UTP cable capable of transmitting data at up to 4 Mbit/s. It is the first cable which can

transmit voice and data up to 4mbps. Anixter Level 2 cable was frequently used on ARCnet and 4 Mbit/s token ring networks

it is also used in telephone networks but it is no longer commonly used.

Category Grade Business Application Frequency

Range

Category 1 voice grade voice-grade telephone networks only; not for data

transmissions

750 kHz

Category 2 voice grade voice-grade telephone networks, as well as IBM dumb-

terminal connections to mainframe computers

1 MHz

Category 3 data grade voice-grade telephone networks, 10Mbps Ethernet,

4Mbps Token Ring, 100BaseT4 Fast Ethernet, and

100VG Any LAN

16 MHz

Category 4 data grade 16Mbps Token Ring networks 20 MHz

Category 5 data grade 100BastTX Fast Ethernet, SONET, and OC-3 ATM

networks

100 MHz

Category 5e data grade Gigabit (1000Mbps) Ethernet 100 MHz

Category 6 data grade Gigabit (1000Mbps) Ethernet 250 MHz

Category 6A data grade Gigabit (1000Mbps) and 10 Gigabit Ethernet 500 MHz

:: UTP Cable Color Codes

1) UTP Horizontal Cable Color Code

Horizontal UTP cable is four-pair construction by industry cabling standard. Each pair has two conductors. One wire of the pa

is assigned the pair color with a white stripe and the other wire is assigned the color white with the pair color stripe. The table

below lists the pair and color code for a four-pair horizontal UTP cable.

Wire Number Pair Number Color

1 1 white/blue

2 1 blue

3 2 white/orange

4 2 orange

5 3 white/green

6




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7 4 white/brown

8 4 brown

2) UTP Backbone Cable Color Code

UTP backbone cables are large, multi-pair cables. These cables are constructed of 25-pair binder groups. Each binder group i

individually color coded and each pair within a 25-pair binder group is individually color coded.

(a) 25-pair Binder Group Color Code

The 25-pair binder group is organized into five groups and there are five pairs in each group. The five color groups in a 25-pair

binder are

White pairs 1 to 5

Red pairs 6 to 10

Black pairs 11 to 15

Yellow pairs 16 to 20

Violet pairs 21 to 25

Within each color group, the five pairs are designated with the group color code and the pair color code. The pair color codefor each of the five pairs with a color coded group are

Blue 1st pair of the color code group

Orange 2nd pair of the color code group

Green 3rd pair of the color code group

Brown 4th pair of the color code group

Slate 5th pair of the color code group

The color code for a 25-pair binder group is shown in the following table.

Wire Number Pair Number Group ColorCode

Pair Color Code Color

1 1 white blue white/blue stripe

2 1 blue/white stripe

3 2 orange white/orange stripe

4 2 orange/white stripe

5 3 green white/green stripe

6 3 green/white stripe

7 4 brown white/brown stripe

8 4 brown/white stripe9 5 slate white/slate stripe

10 5 slate/white stripe

11 6 red blue red/blue stripe

12 6 blue/red stripe

13 7 orange red/orange stripe

14 7 orange/red stripe

15 8 green red/green stripe

16 8 green/red stripe




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18 9 brown/red stripe

19 10 slate red/slate stripe

20 10 slate/red stripe

21 11 black blue black/blue stripe

22 11 blue/black stripe

23 12 orange black/orange stripe

24 12 orange/black stripe25 13 green black/green stripe

26 13 green/black stripe

27 14 brown black/brown stripe

28 14 brown/black stripe

29 15 slate black/slate stripe

30 15 slate/black stripe

31 16 yellow blue yellow/blue stripe

32 16 blue/yellow stripe

33 17 orange yellow/orange stripe34 17 orange/yellow stripe

35 18 green yellow/green stripe

36 18 green/yellow stripe

37 19 brown yellow/brown stripe

38 19 brown/yellow stripe

39 20 slate yellow/slate stripe

40 20 slate/yellow stripe

41 21 violet blue violet/blue stripe

42 21 blue/violet stripe43 22 orange violet/orange stripe

44 22 orange/violet stripe

45 23 green violet/green stripe

46 23 green/violet stripe

47 24 brown violet/brown stripe

48 24 brown/violet stripe

49 25 slate violet/slate stripe

50 25 slate/violet stripe

This is shown clearly in the following picture.




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(b) More than 25-pair binder groups

Multi-pair UTP cables that have more than 25 pairs organize the 25-pair binder groups in color-coded groups using the same

color-coding sequence. This is shown in the following table.

Pair Count Binder Group Color

125 Whiteblue

2650 Whiteorange

5175 Whitegreen

76100 Whitebrown

101125 Whiteslate126150 Redblue

151175 Redorange

176200 Redgreen

201225 Redbrown

226250 RedSlate

251275 Blackblue

276300 Blackorange

301325 Blackgreen

326350 Blackbrown




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351375 Blackslate

376400 Yellow-blue

:: UTP Cable Connectors

1) RJ45 Jack and Plug

Four-pair UTP horizontal cables are terminated with an 8-position modular connector in the work area as shown below. The

RJ45 jack is an 8-conductor, compact, modular jack used to terminate UTP data cable. RJ45 jacks are engineered to maintain

specific Category 5, 5e, 6, or 6A performance, and therefore must match the category of the cable they are terminating.




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:: 568A and 568B Wiring Standards

When we refer to a jack or patch panels wiring connection, we refer to either the 568A or 568B wiring scheme. 568A and

568B wiring scheme define the pin-pair assignments for terminating UTP cable. These assignments define the pinout, or order o

connections, for wires in 8P8C eight-pin modular connector plugs and sockets.

In UTP cable, each pair is represented by a specific color. Pair 1 is Blue, Pair 2 is Orange, Pair 3 is Green, and Pair 4 is Brow

In each pair, one wire is a solid color, and the other is predominantly white with a color stripe. When terminating UTP cable,

each pair corresponds to a specific pin on the IDC contacts of the jack or patch panel.

The following charts illustrate the difference between 568A and 568B wiring scheme.

Notice that the only difference between 568A and 568B is that pairs 2 and 3 (orange and green) are swapped. Both

configurations wire the pins straight through, i.e., pins 1 through 8 on one end are connected to pins 1 through 8 on the other

end.

One can use cables wired according to either configuration in the same installation without significant problem. The primary thin

one has to be careful is not to accidentally wire the ends of the same cable according to different configurations.

PinT568A

Pair

T568B

PairWire

T568A

Color

T568B

ColorPins on plug face (socket is reversed)

1 3 2 tip white/green

stripe

white/orange

stripe

2 3 2 ring green solid orange solid

3 2 3 tipwhite/orange

stripe

white/green

stripe

4 1 1 ring blue solid blue solid

5 1 1 tipwhite/blue

stripe

white/blue

stripe

6 2 3 ring orange solid green solid

7 4 4 tipwhite/brown

stripe

white/brown

stripe

8 4 4 rin brown solid brown solid



what is unshielded-twisted-pair (utp) cable _ fiber optic training & tutorials - faq, tips & news

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