Category 3 cable

Category 3 cable, commonly known as Cat 3 or station wire, and less commonly known as VG or voice-grade (as, for example, in 100BaseVG), is an unshielded twisted pair (UTP) cable used in telephone wiring. It is part of a family of standards defined jointly by the Electronic Industries Alliance (EIA) and the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) and published in TIA/EIA-568-B.

Although designed to reliably carry data up to 10 Mbit/s, modern data networks run at much higher speeds, and Cat 5e or better cable is generally used for new installations. Cat 3 cables may have 2, 3 or 4 pairs.