Tim: >> I wonder if the way some cables are formed makes it easier to wire it >> one way or another? Hand wrangling the wires into the right place to >> crimp on a plug can be a right pain. You've got untangle wires, cross >> some over others, and get them all to go into the plug the same >> distance. It would have been a lot easier to do that if they'd come up >> with a wiring arrangement different from the current specs. i.e. A pair >> on 1 & 2, the next on 3 & 4, the next on 5 & 6, the last on 7 & 8, >> instead of having the break apart pairs and straddle others. I >> seriously doubt that would have degraded noise rejection. Mikkel L. Ellertson: > It has to do with backward compatibility. Remember, the same jacks > are used for more then Ethernet. I've read about that, but I really do not think it's a sensible thing to mix phone and ethernet wires together in the one connector as a standard thing to do. > One consideration is being able to plug an RJ-11 plug into an RJ-45 > jack. (Not really a good idea, as it can bend the outside pins of the > jack...) The center 4 pins on a RJ-45 jack are the same as a RJ-11 > jack. I agree, even with the little plastic spacer that you can fit around them, they're not a good fit. For a long time, here in Australia, those weak little RJ style plugs were not used. I think I only really saw them come out when modems hit about 14k speeds. And when we did use them, we had smaller 6 pin connectors on phone cables compared against the larger 8 pin connectors on ethernet. It was quite obvious, just from looking at plugs and sockets, which was supposed to go in where. Now there's a trend to use the larger 8 pin connectors on everything. Though inconsistently, for instance the phone usually has the small 6 pin socket on the handset unit, but the larger 8 pin at the wall-socket end of the cable. -- (Currently running FC4, occasionally trying FC5.) Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored. I read messages from the public lists.
