So if USB stands for universal serial bus, that, to me, means there is only one stream of charge, however some cables are significantly faster than others. Is this due to the width of the cable? Or quality of the material in the cable?
In: Technology
None of the answers given by the other commenters are the main reason. It is because USB does not actually refer to only one type. USB refers to many standards that have developed over the last 20 years. As the standards have improved (1 to 2 to 3 / 3.1 to 3.2 to 4) the data transfer rates and power delivery have increased. However for this to work, they needed to utilise more pins in the ports among other things. So in reality these cables are built different based on the USB standard they are designed for. Plugging a USB 2 cable into a USB 3 port will limit you to USB 2 speeds.
Edit furthermore there are standards in USB 3 called power delivery that can deliver up to 100W, so it very much depends on the design of the cable, and the port it is plugged into. (This is why you can buy cables that are specialised for data transfer or for lower delivery.)
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