Specialty Wire

About

There are several specialty wires that you might need.

Booger wire is a version of Cat-5 made for direct burial. The phone company uses it for the connection from the pedestal to your NID, and it contains a special gel surrounding the wires to keep out moisture. The “booger” comes from what the gel looks like when it gets on your hands.
Shielded wire is used for high interference environments (not a normal problem in homes) and for microphone connections. If you intend to have a microphone inside your security keypads, or plan to install microphones for voice control, use shielded cable.
UV resistant speaker wire is used for outdoor and direct burial connections. If you plan to extend your whole house music system to the yard, you will need some of this.
Sprinkler cable is used for built-in sprinkler systems. It is a UV resistant cable with 7 conductors.
Combo wires now exist for many different situations. A combo cable is basically two different types of wires connected together. Two of the more popular combo wires are for music systems (2 pairs of speaker wire with a Cat-5E for the control), and surveillance cameras (One coax for video and one pair of 18 gauge zip cord for power).

If you need a specialty wire, get the right wire for the job.