cable casing color

[andrasa]

Can one tell if a cable is cat 4 or cat 5 based on color. I can't find any markings on 4 cable runs not sure if they are cat 4 or cat 5. The four cable runs are light blue in color.

thanks

 

[jeffbouldin]

First of all there was no Cat 4 that I'm aware of. It went from Cat 3 to Cat 5 (I may be wrong). You can tell by how tight the conductors are twisted. Cat 3 is loosely twisted while Cat 5 is twisted together very tightly (probably not a word). The color of the jacket doesn't usually tell you anything. However it should be printed on the jacket (if you can read enough.

 

[jimbopalmer]

cat 4 was a token ring speed supported 16 meg token ring, cat 3 was only rated to 10 meg I tried to remain child-like, all I acheived was childish.

 

[jeffbouldin]

Was it a multi-conductor wire? I don't know much about older networking technologies but I was under the impression that Token Ring ran on coax. Am I mistaken?

 

[jimbopalmer]

Token ring is/was available in twisted pair, often shielded.

It had many advantages over half duplex ethernet, not many over switched full duplex ethernet. I tried to remain child-like, all I acheived was childish.

 

[InnoTech]

so, to answer your question. no, you can not tell the difference between the two cables by color.

just to add on the other subject. token ring is in the network devices/components not cabling. coax, cat5, other UTP and many other cables could/can be implemented. (i'm not trying to be a smartass, guys.)

 

[gguerra]

Cat 4 was actually 20mbps, I know this because one of my cable testers has this as an option for testing.

 

[Jtodd]

Don't know about Cat4, but I think the standards say that Cat5 and above cable must be labeled as to what it is.

Justin T. Clausen
Physical Layer Implementation
California State University, Monterey Bay