Sheilded Twisted Pair (STP)

Short for Shielded Twisted-Pair cable, STP is a type of cable originally developed by IBM for Token Ring* that consists of two individual wires wrapped in a foil shielding to help provide a more reliable data communication.

A type of cable made by intertwining two separate insulated wires together, there are two types of twisted pair: shielded and unshielded. Shielded Twisted Pair (STP) has a fine wire mesh surrounding the wires to protect the transmission; Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP) does not.


* Type of network in which all computers on the network are connected in a circle fashion. The term token is used to describe a segment of information that is sent through that circle, when a computer on the network is able to decode that token the information is received on that computer.