STP stands for Shielded Twisted Pair. It is a cable consisting of one or more twisted pairs of wires and a shield of foil and copper braid. STP cable can be used for high-speed transmission over long distances.
The characteristics of shielded twisted pair are:
- Shielded Twisted Pair (STP) is available at reasonable price (neither too high nor to low)
- It is very easy to install STP in the networking
- In comparison to unshielded twisted STP can transmit data and information at much higher speed.
- The shielding makes this cable durable compared to unshielded twisted pair (UTP).
On the other hand, there are some disadvantages of Shielded twisted pair. They are
- It is costly compared to unshielded twisted pair cable.
- Shielded twisted pair has higher attenuation rate. Attenuation is the loss of signal due to reduction in amplitude or intensity of the signal. Attenuation is important in telecommunication because it determines the signal strength as a function of distance (dB per cm, dB per Km). So high attenuation means signal becomes much weaker over the distance.