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    Cat 3, short for Category 3, is a UTP (Unshielded Twisted Pair) cable designed to carry voice and data up to 10 Mbps (mega bits per second), with possible transmission frequencies up to 16 MHz. Cat 3 cable is part of a family of copper cabling standards defined jointly by the Electronic Industries Alliance (EIA) and the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA). If a cable is certified as Category 3 and not just twisted pair wire, then it will have "Cat 3" printed on the shielding.

    Cat 3 and Cat 5 are the most widely installed categories of cable. Cat 3 cable comes with four pairs of twisted wires. Though both Cat 3 and Cat 5 cables may look similar, Category 3 is designed for a lower speed data transmission purpose and can cause transmission errors if it is used for faster speeds. Cat 3 is certified only for a 16 MHz signal while Category 5 cable can support a 100 MHz signal.

    Ethernet 10Base-T runs over Cat 3 cable, but uses only two pairs of the available four pairs. Ethernet 100Base-T4 utilizes all 4 pairs (8 wires).

    Most cables used for voice transmission are rated Cat 3.

    In the early 1990s, Cat 3 cable was widely accepted as a standard cabling format among computer network administrators. But the Cat 3 cable standard was entirely replaced with the advent of Cat 5 cable standard, which offers higher data transmission speeds.

    Today, Cat 3 cable is one of the oldest cable standards used for data transmission. However, Category 3 cable is very inexpensive and can provide outstanding communications for voice telephones lines in a PBX network.

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    4 comments
    1. Jeff

      7 March, 2013 at 12:06 pm

      I am trying to connect my garage door opener & wall pad and have 3 exisiting cat 3 wires (two go to the safety sensors and 1 to the wall pack. How do I know which cat 3 is which (meaning is there a way to determine this particular wire is the one going to the wall pack and the other two are foir the safety sensors)?

      Reply
    2. Anwar Alam

      10 January, 2012 at 9:53 am

      In a telephone system networking there are 64 typical villas. Each villas are having 10 nos of outlets wired by 4 pair cat-6 cables arriving from local telephone cabinet located inside each villa. All local telephone cabinets of 64 villas are finally connected to MDF by cat-3 cables. Please suggest how many pairs of cat-3 cables shall be pulled from MDF to each villa telephone cabinet?

      Reply
    3. Dale

      6 May, 2011 at 3:46 pm

      I have a hot tub and I’d like to replace the RJ (?) end on the topside controller wire. The wire is a flat 4 strand and it looks like a RJ11 connector on the end that connects into the main green circuit board in the lower part of the hot tub.
      However when I crimped a new RJ11 connector onto the end of the wire, the connector would not clip into the green circuit board. After carefully examining the two clips side-by-side the one  is just a little different on the bottom.
      Any idea what type of clip I’m looking for?
      Thanks
      Dale

      Reply
    4. salma subh

      8 October, 2010 at 3:31 pm

      thanks for useful information ,, but i need more information about noise immunity for the cable
      and what about the diameter of the cable ??

      Reply
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