Term

CAT5e: what is it?

An older category of network cable. Suitable for speeds up to 1 Gbit/s, but it no longer meets today's requirements.

CAT5e (category 5 enhanced) is a network cable that was widely installed in buildings around the turn of the century. It reaches speeds of up to 1 Gbit/s.

For a workstation with a laptop that is often still enough. But modern access points can process more data than a CAT5e cable can carry. The cable then becomes the bottleneck of the network.

During a refurbishment, CAT5e is therefore often replaced by CAT6 or CAT6A.

What does this mean for the IT-Label?

Cabling falls under the Infrastructure component. The official level descriptions mention CAT6 for IT2 and CAT6A or higher for the top levels. With CAT5e, a high label is therefore difficult. Under Scalability, older cabling also counts against you, because it leaves less room for growth. See CAT6 and CAT6A.

← Building management system CAT6

Related terms

All terms