Ethernet over twisted pair technologies use twisted-pair cables for the physical layer of an Ethernet computer network. They are a subset of all Ethernet physical layers.
Early Ethernet had used various grades of coaxial cable, but in 1984, StarLAN showed the potential of simple unshielded twisted pair. This led to the development of 10BASE-T and its successors 100BASE-TX, 1000BASE-T and 10GBASE-T, supporting speeds of 10, 100 Mbit/s and 1 and 10 Gbit/s respectively.
All these standards use 8P8C connectors, and the cables from Cat 3 to Cat 8.
Cabling
Most Ethernet cables are wired “straight-through” (pin 1 to pin 1, pin 2 to pin 2 and so on). In some instances the “crossover” form (receive to transmit and transmit to receive) may still be required.
Cables for Ethernet may be wired to either the T568A or T568B termination standards at both ends of the cable. Since these standards differ only in that they swap the positions of the two pairs used for transmitting and receiving, a cable with T568A wiring at one end and T568B wiring at the other results in a crossover cable.
A 10BASE-T or 100BASE-TX host uses a connector wiring called medium dependent interfaces (MDI), transmitting on pins 1 and 2 and receiving on pins 3 and 6 to a network device. An infrastructure node (a hub or a switch) accordingly uses a connector wiring called MDI-X, transmitting on pins 3 and 6 and receiving on pins 1 and 2. These ports are connected using a straight-through cable so each transmitter talks to the receiver on the other end of the cable.
Nodes can have two types of ports: MDI (uplink port) or MDI-X (regular port, ‘X’ for internal crossover). Hubs and switches have regular ports. Routers, servers and end hosts (e.g. personal computers) have uplink ports. When two nodes having the same type of ports need to be connected, a crossover cable may be required, especially for older equipment. Connecting nodes having different type of ports (i.e. MDI to MDI-X and vice versa) requires straight-through cable. Thus connecting an end host to a hub or switch requires a straight-through cable. Some older switches and hubs provided a button to allow a port to act as either a normal (regular) or an uplink port, i.e. using MDI-X or MDI pinout respectively.
Many modern Ethernet host adapters can automatically detect another computer connected with a straight-through cable and then automatically introduce the required crossover, if needed; if neither of the adapters has this capability, then a crossover cable is required. Most newer switches have auto MDI-X on all ports allowing all connections to be made with straight-through cables. If both devices being connected support 1000BASE-T according to the standards, they will connect regardless of whether a straight-through or crossover cable is used.
A 10BASE-T transmitter sends two differential voltages, +2.5 V or −2.5 V. A 100BASE-TX transmitter sends three differential voltages, +1 V, 0 V, or −1 V. Unlike earlier Ethernet standards using broadband and coaxial cable, such as 10BASE5 (thicknet) and 10BASE2 (thinnet), 10BASE-T does not specify the exact type of wiring to be used, but instead specifies certain characteristics that a cable must meet.
This was done in anticipation of using 10BASE-T in existing twisted-pair wiring systems that did not conform to any specified wiring standard. Some of the specified characteristics are attenuation, characteristic impedance, timing jitter, propagation delay, and several types of noise and crosstalk. Cable testers are widely available to check these parameters to determine if a cable can be used with 10BASE-T. These characteristics are expected to be met by 100 meters of 24-gauge unshielded twisted-pair cable. However, with high quality cabling, reliable cable runs of 150 meters or longer are often achievable and are considered viable by technicians familiar with the 10BASE-T specification.
100BASE-TX follows the same wiring patterns as 10BASE-T, but is more sensitive to wire quality and length, due to the higher bit rates.
1000BASE-T uses all four pairs bi-directionally using hybrid circuits and cancellers. Data is encoded using 4D-PAM5; four dimensions using PAM (pulse amplitude modulation) with five voltages, −2 V, −1 V, 0 V, +1 V, and +2 V. While +2 V to −2 V voltage may appear at the pins of the line driver, the voltage on the cable is nominally +1 V, +0.5 V, 0 V, −0.5 V and −1 V.
100BASE-TX and 1000BASE-T were both designed to require a minimum of category 5 cable and also specify a maximum cable length of 100 meters. Category 5 cable has since been deprecated and new installations use Category 5e.