The TL-U026-016 is a 16-ft. USB Certified 2.0 active extension cable that is bus powered and can be used to increase the length of a USB device without the worry of signal loss and potential performance problems. USB limits a cable's length to 16 feet. Any length above 16 feet requires the use of an active cable such as this one. This cable has a signal booster built in. The overall cable length can be extended up to 80 feet by daisy chaining up to 5 of these active cables. The cable must be plugged directly into a USB port (either on the PC or a hub).