Serial cable
Networking cable used for serial communication
title: "Serial cable" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["telecommunications-equipment"] description: "Networking cable used for serial communication" topic_path: "engineering" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_cable" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary Networking cable used for serial communication ::
::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/Serial_cable_(blue).jpg" caption="Serial cables are typically used for [[RS-232]] communication."] ::
A serial cable or RS-232 cable is a cable used to transfer information between two devices using a serial communication protocol. The form of connectors depends on the particular serial port used. A cable wired for connecting two DTEs directly is known as a null modem cable.
Maximum cable lengths
The maximum working length of a cable varies depending on the characteristics of the transmitters and receivers, the baud rate on the cable, and the capacitance and electrical impedance of the cable. The RS-232 standard states that a compliant port must provide defined signal characteristics for a capacitive load of pF. This does not correspond to a fixed length of cable since varying cables have different characteristics. Empirically tested combinations of bit rate, serial ports, cable type, and lengths may provide reliable communications, but generally RS-232-compatible ports are intended to be connected by, at the most, a few tens of metres of cable. Other serial communications standards are better adapted to drive hundreds or thousands of metres of cable.
References
::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::