Category 1 cable, also known as Cat 1, Level 1, or voice-grade copper, is a grade of
unshielded twisted pair cabling designed for
telephone
A telephone, colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that enables two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most ...
communications, and at one time was the most common
on-premises wiring. The maximum frequency suitable for transmission over Cat 1 cable is 1 MHz,
but Cat 1 is not currently considered adequate for data transmission (though it was at one time used for that purpose on the
Apple Macintosh starting in the late 1980s in the form of
Farallon Computing's//NetTopia's PhoneNet, an implementation of Apple's
LocalTalk networking hardware standard).
Although not an official category standard established by TIA/EIA, Category 1 has become the de facto name given to Level 1 cables originally defined by
Anixter International, the distributor. Cat 1 cable was typically used for networks that carry only voice traffic, for example telephones. Official
TIA/EIA-568 standards have only been established for cables of
Category 3 ratings or above.
References
External links
CCNA: Network Media Types
Signal cables
Local loop
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