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In-depth Understanding of LC Duplex Connectors

by http://www.fiber-mart.com

As one of the small form factor (SFF) field polish connectors, LC duplex connectors are widely used for equipment cross-connects or interconnects in backbone, horizontal and work area applications for high-speed data transmissions. They provide a solution for high-density telecommunication rooms, LANs (Local Area Networks), public networks and fiber-to-the-desk applications. While talking about LC duplex, most just think them as the small useful tools which allow fast and easy field termination for fiber optic connectivity. Actually, LC duplex are more than what their design and appearance show. Their world are full of colors. This article guides the inner world of these LC duplex connectors from their several family members.
Standard LC Duplex
It’s known that the standard LC connector is developed by Lucent Technologies. Its connector body is squarish shape that is similar to SC connector, and has half the size of the SC. Standard LC duplex connectors are LC with a duplex configuration with a plastic clip. The fibers used to terminate in its 1.25mm ceramic ferrule can be both single-mode and multi-mode versions, such as LC to LC fiber patch cable single mode and LC LC multimode patch cord. Compared with SC, LC’s high-density design and 1.25mm ferrule double the port density, reducing space requirements on racks, enclosures, panels and faceplates. Nowadays, LC duplex connectors are still popular both in telcos and high bit rate LANs, etc..
Mini-LC Duplex
As a variation of standard LC duplex, the mini-LC duplex uses current industry-standard LC connectors, but allows closer ferrule spacing by using the duplex clip (usually with color coding)—mini-LC has a reduced center spacing of 5.25mm compared to a standard LC of 6.25 mm. This type of LC duplex connector is designed to operate with the Mini SFP modules and provide a higher density deployment for data center equipment.
LC Duplex with Uniboot Uniboot
LC duplex connector with uniboot is two LC connectors encased in a common housing with one boot, terminated on a single twin-fiber round cable. This type of connector is more compact compared to standard LC duplex. Fiber patch cables terminated with uniboot LC duplex connectors, are ideal for high-density cabling application since they reduce more fiber counts and greatly reduce cable management space. (The boots of an LC duplex connector can be configured with various versions according to different requirements. In addition to standard connector boots and uniboots, there are mini boots, BTW (Behind the Wall) boots, short boots, and 45 or 90 degree angel boots in the market.)
LC-HD Duplex
In practical operation, it’s not easy to release the LC duplex connectors in patch panels, and sometimes thumbs and forefingers are not ideally suited to operate the release lever and pulling the connector. As such, LC-HD duplex connectors are designed to help deal with this issue. With a flexible “pull-tab” or “push-pull tab”, the LC-HD duplex connector can be disengaged easily from densely loaded panels without using the special tools which allows users easy accessibility in tight areas when deploying in data center high-density applications. Some types of LC-HD duplex connectors combine the advantages of uniboot, which make them more suitable to high-density cabling applications.
Keyed LC Duplex
Keyed LC duplex connectors are available in 12 colors, thus creating a colorful LC world. Each color of the keyed LC duplex connectors represents a unique keying pattern which only allows its matched color-coded adapter mating. This kind of LC duplex connector can help segregate or identify of parts or paths within a network infrastructure, as well as reducing the risk of accidental or malicious network access, particularly in shared access areas or in secure hierarchical environments.
LC Duplex Connector Advantages
The LC duplex connector is designed in response to the growing needs for smaller and easier-to-use fiber optic connectivity. It simplifies moves, adds, and changes, and reduces installation time for field mountable connectors, time- and money-saving. Additionally, it doubles fiber density in shelves and outlets –lowering system costs again, as well as improves durability and reduces cross-connect rearrangement effort.
Conclusion
LC duplex connector uses an improved version of the familiar and user-friendly telephone plug, which provides a reassuring, audible click when engaged. The unique combination of small size and the click of connectivity makes the LC duplex the right choice for your network. With the increasing connectivity requirements. The family LC duplex connectors are sure to be enlarged. When you want to buy these connectors, fiber-mart is a good choice for many LC solutions. Besides LC solutions, SC solutions are also available for you,like SC patch cord, SC adapters, and so on. Visit fiber-mart for more information about LC and SC fiber optic solutions.

40G QSFP+: Data Center Bandwidth Provider

by http://www.fiber-mart.com

With time passing by, the world’s data centers witness the rapid flowing of digital information whose volume grows at an ever increasing rate. The increase of server virtualization and cloud computing applications, coupled with the trend toward network convergence, all these are boosting today’s data center networks to become faster and more efficient than ever before. Date back to the past years, 100Mbps Ethernet is replaced by 1Gbps Ethernet which is then substituted by 10Gbps Ethernet. With 40GbE and 100GbE being available in the market, some companies or organizations can implement cut-through switching and flatter network architectures which can deliver more bandwidth, so as to reduce traffic latency and meet wireless computing needs.
To ensure the smooth 40GbE networking performance, one device is fundamental—40G QSFP+ (Quad Small Form-factor Plable Plus) transceiver. This QSFP+ transceiver interfaces a network device motherboard (for a switch, router, media converter or similar device) to a fiber optic cable, providing sufficient bandwidth to enable fully non-blocking switch fabrics.
40G QSFP+ Working Principlerinciple
40G QSFP+ transceiver is a hot-swappable module, integrating 4 independent 10Gbps data lanes in each direction for 40Gbps aggregated bandwidth. QSFP+ modules offer customers a wide variety of high-density 40Gbps connectivity options for data center, high-performance computing networks, enterprise core and distribution layers, and service provider transport applications. The release of the IEEE 802.3ba physical layer standard for 40G QSFP+ in 2010 specifies both fiber and copper cabling solutions, such as 40GBASE-SR4, 40GBASE-LR4 and 40GBASE-CR4.
40G QSFP+ Port types
Commonly used QSFP+ transceiver port types are 40GBASE-SR4 and 40GBASE-LR4.
40GBASE-SR4
40GBASE-SR4 physical medium dependent (PMD) variant defines a 4 lane parallel optical interconnect for operation up to 100m link length over OM3 multi-mode fiber (MMF) and to 150m over OM4 MMF. It establishes high-bandwidth 40G optical links over 12-fiber parallel fiber terminated with MPO/MTP multi-fiber female connectors. Four of the twelve fiber for receive, other four for transmit, leaving the middle four fiber unused. Each of the four lanes operates at a data rate of 10.3125Gbps which is the same serial bit rate that was defined for 10Gb Ethernet links in the IEEE 802.3ae standard ratified in 2002.
40GBASE-SR4 PMD addresses the modern need for 40Gbps interconnects in the data center and takes advantage of lower cost 850nm Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Laser (VCSEL) technology that is widely deployed throughout networking industries. As each of the 4 lanes in 40GBASE-SR4 operates at the same serial bit rate as a 10Gb Ethernet link, there is an opportunity for switching hardware vendors to utilize 40GBASE-SR4 as 4 separate 10Gb Ethernet interconnects. The problem is that 40GBASE-SR4 standard is not defined to be backward compatible with the existing 10GbE short reach interconnect standard.
To address this issue, QSFP BiDi transceivers have been released into the market. A QSFP BiDi transceiver (e.g. Cisco QSFP-40G-SR-BD) transmits full-duplex 40-Gbps traffic over one dual-fiber LC-connector OM3 or OM4 MMF cable. It provides the capability to reuse 10-Gbps fiber infrastructure. In other words, it enables data center operators to upgrade to 40-Gbps connectivity without making any changes to the previous 10-Gbps fiber cable plant.
40GBASE-LR4
40GBASE-LR4 has two link options: coarse wavelength division multiplexing (CWDM) and parallel single-mode fiber (PSM). This passage mainly talks about the first one option.
40GBASE-LR4 CWDM QSFP+ uses a duplex LC connector as the optical interface, able to support transmission distance up to 10km over single-mode fiber (SMF). It converts 4 inputs channels of 10G electrical data to 4 CWDM optical signals by a driven 4-wavelength distributed feedback (DFB) laser array, and then multiplexes them into a single channel for 40G optical transmission, propagating out of the transmitter module from the SMF. Reversely, the receiver module accepts the 40G CWDM optical signals input, and demultiplexes it into 4 individual 10G channels with different wavelengths. The central wavelengths of the 4 CWDM channels are 1271, 1291, 1311 and 1331 nm as members of the CWDM wavelength grid defined in ITU-T G694.2. Each wavelength channel is collected by a discrete photo diode and output as electric data after being amplified by a transimpedance amplifier (TIA).
Cable Types for 40G QSFP+
IEEE has specified standards for 40G transmission in both long distance and short distance, which are 40GBASE-SR4 and 40GBASE-LR4. As what has been mentioned above, the latter is sested for 40G transmission over SMF in long distance up to 10km, while the former is for 40G transmission in short distance over MMF (often in with a 12-fiber MPO connector version)—OM3 (up to 100 meters) and OM4 (up to 150 meters). OM3 and OM4, which are usually aqua-colored, are accepted economic solutions for 40G in short distance with lower insertion loss and higher bandwidth. Besides, DACs are also chosen as the 40G cabling solutions sometimes, available in QSFP+ to QSFP+ DAC and QSFP to SFP+ cable versions.
Conclusion
40G QSFP+ transceivers support 40GBASE Ethernet, allowing flexibility of interface choice and great bandwidth for data centers. For your smooth 40GbE performance, fiber-mart supplies various cost-effective QSFP+ transceivers which are fully compatible with major brands, such as Cisco, Juniper, Brocade, and so on. Besides these 40G modules, SFP transceivers are also offered, like Cisco GLC-T, a Cisco compatible 1000BASE-T SFP. All these products are rigorously checked for quality and compatibility assurance. If you want such a module for your networking use, you can consider fiber-mart.

Understanding Industrial Fiber Optic Cable

by http://www.fiber-mart.com

Fiber optic cabling usually utilizes redized jackets to ensure optimal performance in the face of extreme temperatures; exposure to UV/sunlight, oil, and solvents; and crushing impact, which makes it the ideal solution in any industrial environment where high-speed, high-bandwidth data solutions are needed. It can be used for campus and in-building data backbones to anchor an operation’s Ethernet, and also for point-to-point digital signal transmission. Today’s article will make a brief introduction to the basics of industrial fiber optic cable.
fiber-optics-fiber-mart-com
The Advantages of Fiber Optic Cable
Compared to the conventional copper wires, fiber optic cables are smaller and lighter than copper cables, extremely durable and intrinsically safe, with no risk of spark hazards. In addition, the following part lists several detailed information about the benefits of fiber optics.
Higher carrying capacity—as the fiber optic cables are thinner than copper cables, more fibers can be bundled into a given-diameter cable. This allows more data information will be be carried across the network without interruption.
Less signal degradation—it is known that the loss of signal in optical fiber is less than in copper wire.
Lightweight—An optical cable weighs less than a comparable copper wire cable. Fiber-optic cables take up less space in the ground.
Flexible—Because fiber optics are so flexible and can transmit and receive light, they are used in many flexible digital applications.
Types of Fiber Optic Cables
Fiber optic cabling can be segmented based on design criteria and installation environment:
Loose tube cables lay thinly coated fiber strands into unitized thermoplastic tubes, giving the fiber strands flexibility to move within the tubes and the cable, which makes it possess the ability to stand up to outdoor temperatures and harsh environments. Although loose-tube gel-filled fiber optic cables are used for high-fiber-count, long-distance telco applications, they are an inferior design for the Local Area Network applications where reliability, attenuation stability over a wide temperature range and low installed cost are the priorities.
loose-tube-or-tight-buffered-cable
Tight buffered cables contain an individual buffer on each fiber stand, allowing for easy handling and quick termination. For common small fiber counts, this design delivers a smaller cable diameter than loose tube cables and is best suited for indoor environments. The most common designs for tight buffered cabling are distribution and breakout. For applications like moderate distance transmission for telecom local loop, LAN, SAN, and point-to-point links in cities, buildings, factories, office parks and on campuses. Tight-buffered cables offer the flexibility, direct connectability and design versatility necessary to satisfy the diverse requirements existing in high performance fiber optic applications.
Singlemode and multi-mode cables are another common types of fiber optic cables. Single-mode fiber strands are designed to interface with laser optic light sources for distances beyond 300 meters, while multi-mode strands or MM fiber patch cords are designed to interface with LED and vertical-cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) light sources for short-distance cabling runs.
Considerations When Installing Fiber Optic Cables
If you are considering using fiber optic cables in your installation, take a moment to review the installation guides. Firstly, for industrial installations, it is critical to consider and evaluate the environment. Additionally, as the fiber optic cables are more susceptible to damage during the stress of installation, therefore there are two specifications for bend radii—Bend Radii before installation and Bend Radii after installation. All hardware and support structures should follow the recommendations of TIA-569 and NECA/BICSI 568 Standards documents. Last but not the least, use cable management straps or cable ties to support cable bundles. Make sure these implements are fastened snugly, but not tightly around cable bundles.
Conclusion
There is without saying that the advent of fiber optic cable solutions has been one of the best things to happen to technology in recent years. With the demand on technology ever-increasing, fiber optic cables are becoming the preferred method of transmission over traditional coaxial solutions. fiber-mart.COM offers a full range of optical devices, such as fiber optic cable, optical transceivers, DAC/AOC cables and so on. Fiber patch cables LC to LC and LC LC single mode patch cord are provided with high quality and low price. If you have any requirement, please send your request to us.

Do You Have Any Idea of Water-Resistant Fiber Optic Cable?

by http://www.fiber-mart.com

There is no doubt that fiber optic cables play an integral role in telecommunication industry. Applications like data centers, local area networks, telecommunication networks, industrial Ethernet, and wireless network are all needing fiber optics to ensure smooth connectivity. Each application requires a specific cable design based on performance requirements, environmental conditions, and installation type. The common fiber optic cables like LC to LC patch cord cannot adapt to the harsh environment (e.g. moisture environment or underground deployment), thus water-resistant fiber optic cables are highly demanded on the market due to their water proof nature. Here is what you should know about the water-resistant fiber optic cable.
Overview of Water-resistant Fiber Optic Cables
Water-resistant fiber optic cable refers to the special type of fiber optic cable that are designed and specified for installations where the cable will come in contact with water or moisture, such as aerial, direct buried, or in conduit. The cables in these applications are exposed to or can be temporarily submerged in water, so they contain either a water-resistant gel-filled or gel-free (dry gel) polymer.
Generally, fiber optic cables can be divided into three types—outside plant cable (OSP), indoor/outdoor, and indoor, which are specified based on the environment and location where they are installed. With the exception of indoor cables, all cables contain water-resistant gel-filled or gel-free material to protect them from water and moisture. Before the use of gel-filled and gel-free materials, flooded core was another water-blocking method that is rarely used today (it has been replaced with gel-filled). The following image shows the gel-filled cables.
water_tolerance
The gel is a gooey substance that must be removed when accessing and installing the cable. Gel-free cables, which are now more widely used, contain a super-absorbent polymer powder that is activated when it comes in contact with water or moisture. This blocks the water from penetrating the cable and allows for some expansion and contraction with temperature changes. Indoor cables do not contain water-resistant material since they are not typically exposed to water. Indoor (and indoor/outdoor) cables must meet additional flammability requirements dictated by local codes, such as the National Electrical Code.
Tight-Buffered & Loose Tube Cable Construction Provides Excellent Moisture Resistance
Water-resistant materials and cables are included in many industry specifications and standards. Generally, there are two basic water-resistant cable designs: Tight-buffer cables (primarily used inside buildings), Loose tube cables (used for OSP and indoor/outdoor).
It is known to all that most tight-buffered cable designs (seen in image below) are specified for indoor use, but some of them are designed with water-resistant powder and yarn, making them suitable for some indoor/outdoor applications. This tight-buffered cable utilizes an different design approach to deal with the moisture issue. Buffer materials are low-porosity plastics with excellent moisture resistance. This construction very effectively minimises the water molecule and OH-ion concentration level at the glass surface and virtually eliminates the stress corrosion phenomenon.
tight-buffered-cable
In loose tube cables (seen in image below), in order to prevent the water from reaching the 250Ľm coated fibers, the tubes surrounding the fibers must be filled with water-absorbent powder or gel that withstands high-moisture conditions, making them excellent for outside plant applications. This approach is especially made to waterproof the cable by filling the empty spaces in the cable with gel. The gel-filled tubes can also expand and contract with temperature changes, which makes loose-tube cable great for harsh, high-humidity environments where water or condensation can be a problem. However, gels can move, flow, and settle, leaves an uncertainty of the filled level of any particular point of a loose-tube gel-filled cable. Because loose-tube cable is typically 250 microns, you’ll need a fan-out kit to build up the individual fiber strands to 900 microns when making the transition at the entrance point from outdoor loose-tube to indoor to tight-buffered cable.
loose-tube-cable
The same level of protection remains in place all along the fiber, regardless of installation conditions, environment, or time. The balance of the tight-buffered, tight bound cable designs is such that it minimizes the open spaces available in the cable structure in which water can reside. Even if an outer cable jacket is cut, or water otherwise enters the cable structure, only a very small percentage of the cross-sectional area is open to water.
Conclusion
When selecting the suitable fiber optic cables, one must consider the application, the installation location, and the appropriate cable design and type according to specifications and standards. The water-resistant optic cable is specially made for moisture environment to insure the smooth connectivity. However, whether to have the loose tube fiber optic cable or tight buffered cable, it depends on the installation location. fiber-mart.COM offers a full range of fiber optic cables at very economical rates. These cables are widely used and are highly demanded on the market due to their water proof nature. In addition to this, we offer these cables in various fiber optic cable specifications, such as duplex/simplex fiber cable, single-mode/multimode fiber optic cable, LC/FC/SC/ST fiber optic cable and so on. LC to FC patch cord is absolutely high quality and low price, just as the other fiber optic cables. If you want to know more about our products, please contact us directly.

 

Seven Tips for the Cable Installation

Cable installation can be a finicky thing. People without appropriate knowledge and training can not be capable of running cables, otherwise they will end up with network failure. End users might have the experience of running telephone cables, so that they want to take the risk of wiring network cables. In fact, telephone cables can tolerate quite a lot of errors, but that is not the case of the data cabling as it is quite sensitive to cable errors. Therefore, to avoid potential network error and reduce your risks of costly mistakes, here are several things you should know before the cable installation.
Using Cable Management
The first thing you should bear in your mind is that the cabling work won’t stop with the initial installation. More cables and optical devices will be added. Thus to make sure that you label appropriate cables, color-code cables, or implement some other kind of process to make it easier to identify cables later on. What’s more, adding ladder rack, rack-based cable management makes ongoing maintenance much, much easier. The following image can easily illustrate the importance of fiber cable management.
beforeafter cable mangaement
Running Cable in Parallel With Electrical Cables
Data cabling used UTP (unshielded twisted pairs) to achieve its goals. The magnetic field generated by the low voltage running through the cable is a critical component of the communications chain. When you run this unshielded cabling in parallel with electrical cables, that magnetic field is disrupted and the communication becomes noisy and garbled. In many cases, transmissions will simply not make it from Point A to Point B. In other cases, transmission rates will slow to a crawl as communications are constantly retried. If you have to go near electrical power lines, cross them in perpendicular instead. From a personal experience, a newly installed coaxial cable can be easily out of work if they are twisted around the overhead electrical cabling that ran between the two buildings.
Minding Distance Limitations of Your Cabling
It is known that the typical distance limitations for UTP cabling with up to 1 Gbps is 100 meters. However, if you’re running cabling for some other purposes, such as 10 Gbps or 40 Gbps, be mindful of the distance limitations associated with the type of cabling you intend to use. For example, if you intend to run 10 Gbps for up to 100 meters over twisted pair cabling, you need to use Category 6A or better cabling. Or if you are running 10 Gbqs for up to 10 km, you need to use 10GBASE-LR SFP+with patch cord LC-LC.
Planning for Future Proofing
Maybe your network only provision 100 Mbps network connections to the desktop for now, even though the 1G Ethernet has become a ubiquitous standard. But suppose you are going to move to a new location and you need to install new cabling. Are you going to go with yesterday’s best cabling technology or are you going to install something that will meet today’s needs and your needs for the next few years?
Remember, the labor is the most expensive part of your project. While top-of-the-line cable won’t be the least expensive option, you should consider reasonably high-end cable for your installation. Maybe you don’t go with the absolute best, after all, many organizations won’t need 10 Gbps to the desktop for quite some time but don’t go for cheap, either.
Following the Cabling Standards
Many users might have the fallacy that there are only eight individual wires inside a cabling jacket, so why not terminate them at random as long as you use the same scheme at both ends? Of course, that is the bad ideas.
wiring standard
The cabling standard known as EAI/TIA-568-A and B are existed for a reason. This standard defines how the cables are twisted and placed in the jacket. If you deviate from those standards, you risk introducing noise and inefficiency into your cable plant that can have a negative impact on overall network performance. The following image shows UTP Cable Termination Standards EIA/TIA 568A and EIA/TIA 568B, and the only difference is that the green and orange pairs are terminated to different pins.
Testing the Cabling Results to Ensure Cabling System Properly Functioned
Once the cabling is installed, you should test every cable using appropriate tools to make sure that it will be suitable for its intended use. Fiber optic testing of newly installed systems not only verifies that the system meets its design requirements, but also creates a performance baseline for all future testing and troubleshooting of that system to support the evaluation of warranty claims. The following image shows a Visual fault locator (VFL), designed with a visible laser and universal adapter like FC, SC and ST etc., which can help user easily locate faults on the fiber link.
vfl cable tester
This testing typically includes verifying length and cable specifications matched to needs. If you need 1 Gbps transmission speeds, verify that the cable’s properties will support that need. This testing result will ensure that the data necessary to properly evaluate any future system malfunctions will be available.
Ensure a Quality Installation With Quality Fiber Optics
The amount of information carried in two strands of optical fiber would require a copper cable four inches in diameter. When considering the space constraints, required bandwidth, and long distance transmission needs in today’s applications, fiber optic products are the only viable choice. Easy installation and upgrades allow you to meet future growth needs and install spare fiber today for a more economical choice than installing additional cables later. fiber-mart.COM gives you quality products for all your fiber optic needs to reduce your risk of network failure.

Brief Introduction to Network Adapter

Generally for a home network, the most important consideration is the speed you have contracted for with your Internet service provider (ISP). And network adapters as an important element in wire management, are required to connect to the Internet with or without an Ethernet cable. There are many types of network adapters, an wireless one can help people connect to the home or office network as long as the computer is in the vicinity. This article will provide some information about network adapters that may be useful to potential buyers.
Main Features of Network Adapters
The wireless network adapter is quite similar to a memory stick in appearance. The device will usually insert into a USB port and has a LED light that indicates operability and power. The devices can be portable and quite effective. Some are slightly larger and may be the size of a credit card. Because of their size, the devices are convenient and easy to install. More designers are coming to appreciate the compactness of network adapters.
network adapter
When the device is pled in, it will scan for local networks to connect to and display them for the user. Users simply have to click the name of the network they wish to join. Any credentials that need to be provided should be provided, and this is all it requires to surf the network wirelessly. Most devices only require the credentials once, and it will boot each time it’s logged in.
The Important of Network Adapter
Network adapters are necessary for those who desire network connectivity. Network adapters bring so much more functionality and flexibility when it comes to connecting to the Internet. Wireless network adapters are even more desirable. Designers are recognizing that network adapters are instrumental to the success of the device. Local technology companies can provide network adapters at an affordable price to clients who need the functionality and the scalability. Network adapters are instrumental to connecting single or multiple devices to the Internet.
Software Drivers Are Necessary
Wireless network adapters need a piece of software called a device driver. These network drivers will allow applications to communicate with the network adapter hardware. When the network drivers are communicating with the hardware, the devices operate easier. Drivers can make current and past technology more compatible. If an upgrade is necessary from a PCI card or a PCMCIA, USB devices with update driver software is the preferable choice.
Backwards and Forwards Compatibility
Laptop computers will come equipped with a built-in WiFi card. When the wireless standards change and a new card is required, network adapters are usually backwards and forwards compatible. This is desirable if you want the newer and faster standard. For instance, most network adapters will support both the 802.11g standard and the 802.11n standard to ensure that they are both backwards and forwards compatible.
However to Ensure the Performance of Your Network Adapter
The network interface is where the data hits the computer. It’s the port or WiFi adapter that receives the data from the air or cable and translates it into something the computer can understand. No matter how fast the data arrives at the interface, it will only pass through as fast as the interface can process it. Many things can slow it down.
It’s important to remember that an interface that is capable of higher speeds than your network provides will not help things go faster. Spending money on a Gigabit network card won’t give you 1000 Mbps if your ISP is only supplying 25 Mbps.
Furthermore, a Ethernet cable in a cable management systems used to achieve the connectivity will also pose threat to the internet speed. Ethernet cables are presented in different categories. The most commonly used is Cat5, Cat5e and Cat6. CAT 5, rated at 100 Mbps; CAT 5e rated at 1000 Mbps; and CAT 6 rated at 10,000 Mpbs. CAT 5 is fine for most internet access through DSL or cable, while CAT 5e works well on connections over 100Mbps, as well as Gigabit business networks and home fiber optic connections. CAT 6 is probably overkill for most home networks, but is useful for business networks over 1 Gbps.
Other than cables used in home network, there are other factors that can throttle the performance of your network. Therefore, to use an external test server tests not only your home setup, including your adapter, but everything between you and the server doing the test.