10BaseT

10Base-T

10BASE-T, one of several physical media specified in the IEEE 802.3 standard for Ethernet local area networks (LANs), is ordinary telephone twisted pair wire. 10BASE-T supports Ethernet's 10 Mbps transmission speed. In addition to 10Base-T, 10 megabit Ethernet can be implemented with these media types:

10BASE-2 (Thinwire coaxial cable with a maximum segment length of 185 meters)
10BASE-5 (Thickwire coaxial cable with a maximum segment length of 500 meters)
10BASE-F (optical fiber cable)
10BASE-36 (broadband coaxial cable carrying multiple baseband channels for a maximum length of 3,600 meters)

This designation is an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) shorthand identifier. The "10" in the media type designation refers to the transmission speed of 10 Mbps. The "BASE" refers to baseband signalling, which means that only Ethernet signals are carried on the medium. The "T" represents twisted-pair; the "F" represents fiber optic cable; and the "2", "5", and "36" refer to the coaxial cable segment length (the 185 meter length has been rounded up to "2" for 200).

Also see 100Base-T and Gigabit Ethernet.