Category 4 cable (Cat 4) is a

cable Cable may refer to: Mechanical * Nautical cable, an assembly of three or more ropes woven against the weave of the ropes, rendering it virtually waterproof * Wire rope, a type of rope that consists of several strands of metal wire laid into a hel ...

that consists of eight copper wires arranged in four

unshielded twisted pair Twisted pair cabling is a type of wiring used for communications in which two conductors of a single circuit are twisted together for the purposes of improving electromagnetic compatibility. Compared to a single conductor or an untwisted ba ...

s (UTP) supporting

signal In signal processing, a signal is a function that conveys information about a phenomenon. Any quantity that can vary over space or time can be used as a signal to share messages between observers. The '' IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing' ...

s up to 20

MHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose expression in terms of SI base units is s−1, meaning that one he ...

. It is used in telephone networks which can transmit voice and data up to 16

Mbit The megabit is a multiple of the unit bit for digital information. The prefix mega (symbol M) is defined in the International System of Units (SI) as a multiplier of 106 (1 million), and therefore :1 megabit = = = 1000 kilobits. The megabit h ...

/s. For a brief period it was used for some

Token Ring Token Ring network IBM hermaphroditic connector with locking clip. Screen contacts are prominently visible, gold-plated signal contacts less so. Token Ring is a computer networking technology used to build local area networks. It was introduc ...

, 10BASE-T, and 100BASE-T4 networks, but was quickly superseded by

Category 5 cable Category 5 cable (Cat 5) is a twisted pair cable for computer networks. Since 2001, the variant commonly in use is the Category 5e specification (Cat 5e). The cable standard provides performance of up to 100 MHz and is ...

. It is no longer common or used in new installations and is not recognized by the current version of the

ANSI/TIA-568 ANSI/TIA-568 is a technical standard for commercial building cabling for telecommunications products and services. The title of the standard is ''Commercial Building Telecommunications Cabling Standard'' and is published by the Telecommunication ...

data cabling standards.

References

{{UTP Cable Standards Ethernet cables