I think it depends in part on the brand of jack and plug.

I was in the habit of using RJ45 jacks for everything but I was finding the the RJ11 plugs didn't always seat well. There were also cases of the little gold wires in the jack being damaged - not the wires the RJ11 was actually connecting to but the outer wires being pushed on by the plastic part of the RJ11 plug.

So I would suggest continue to use the RJ45 jacks but either put RJ45 plugs on the phone gear (what I do) or make up little adapters.

I had the same experience.^^^

I just make custom pig tails at the room end that go from the phone to the RJ45 keystone jack. I take one of the RJ45 patch cables i have, cut an end off and put on an RJ11 connector. RJ45 plugs into the wall plate RJ11 plugs into the phone.

If you are going to replace a fitting on a patch cable or make an adapter, wouldn't it just be easier to use rj11 keystone jacks rather then the rj45?

I treat every Cat5/6 cable the same in the home. At the head end they go to a patch panel. At the room end they go to a wall plate. All terminated 568A.

Now i can make any RJ45 jack in the house be anything. It can be a phone, an ethernet jack or used with baluns for audio or video. In 5-10 years when we remove all the existing hardware we dont care what the Cat5s were used for. We can re-purpose them without removing a single wall plate.

The "pig tails" are a lot less work and it saves us from having to deal with the RJ11 keystones. They add time to each wall plate because you have to look on the list and see which one gets the RJ11. You have to remember to position it correctly on the wall plate so all the phone ports are on the left (for example). Its much easier to burn thru the rooms terminating everything RJ45 and worrying about what goes where later.

As an example lets say your Cat5 for the phone passed when testing but when you connect the phone to it you have noise on the line for whatever reason. If your wallplates have RJ11's you have to start spinning screws and break out termination tools. If everything is RJ45 you just move the phone to the other RJ45 jack and make a note about the unused cable thats having problems.

^^^^ yup, that and it's easier on inventory management/ordering/storage. I see a bunch of keystone jacks and know that they are all the same and can all be used for voice, data, baluns, whatever...don't have to worry about additional sku's.

I've got to disagree with most of you on this one. 

Years ago we used net keystones for our phones but had to service a few (not many) due to the phone cord moving and shifting and shorting out the pins which killed the phones.  With how little phone jacks actually go into houses today, I don't mind carrying a few extra keystones.

In 12 years I've changed only a handful of RJ11 keystones to RJ45's so pulling out a few tools is no big deal.  12 years of not having to punch down the green and brown pair should make up for that time=)

Also, we try not to plate any feeds that will be used for baluns, especially HDMI for obvious reasons.

 

 

Every Cat5 or Cat6 keystone jack I have EVER used say either cat5 or cat6 on them, not RJ45. The phone (rj11) ones I use either say Cat3 or nothing on them. A Cat5 keystone jack is a Cat5 keystone jack. Can you use cat5 cable with a cat3 keystone jack? Yeah, but in that case I would have said Cat3 jack. 

Isnt that telling you what to plug into the front of the jack. Keystone just means the form factor.  Not to mention that cat5 (actually cat5e) isn't limited to 4 pairs, 25 pair and been 100 pair is common. So if I have a cat5 jack but have a 25 pair cable how does your "cat5 jack" work?

I think the cat 5 connector is actually called an 8P8C connector and ao the jack would be a jack for that type of connector. Hell I'm sure wiki has a bunch on it.

[Link: en.wikipedia.org]

[Link: en.wikipedia.org]

But search cat5 jack and :
[Link: en.wikipedia.org]


Again, I was just giving g you a hard time. However, we often complain that we don't have standards in our industry, well we could at least stick to the proper names for the things that have proper names.

What you mean is that every RJ45 keystone jack you have ever used says CAT5 or CAT on it. The label doesn't name the jack, but labels the kind of wire to be used. RJ11s probably don't say CAT5 or 6 because the RJ11 does not use all of the conductors of the CAT5, while the RJ45 jack does.


You know, I see your logic; on audio equipment, every phone jack says "Phone" or "Headphones." However, these just aren't called CAT3 or CAT5 jacks. They just aren't. 

And on the backs of AVRs, none of the phono jacks (RCA) are labeled RCA, but we call them RCA jacks. The HDMI jacks do indeed use HDMI wire... so it depends on the connector and the habit in the industry.

Which is clearest? I'd say it's clearest to call the jacks we're talking about RJ45 jacks. First, that's what they are and that's what they were first called. Second, they can use CAT5 or CAT6, so should we call them CAT5/CAT6 jacks instead?

Since RJ11 plugs are loose in RJ45 jacks, this combination should not be used. Since you can't put an RJ45 plug into an RJ11 jack (that can have 60 volts DC and more than a hundred volts ring voltage on it), RJ11 jacks should be used for phone.

Have always used cat 3 jacks for phone and cat 5 for data. I like to keep to standards. We run blue cat 5 for data and white for telco. The telco wires get punched to a 110 telco hub and the data gets punched to a 110 data hub. If putting an RJ11 in an RJ45 jack, the pins have too much play which could create issues. You would have to make up a tail like Stamp suggested.The customer at some point will try to stick an ethernet cable into it and wonder why he can't get on line. Using the industry standard eliminates those phone calls. As Ernie mentioned, there is ring voltage on a telco line.....it could damage a computer potentially....... If the glove dont fit......the customer can't plug in

Telco is the least of my worries on any given project so I keep to industry standards.

I do agree with this side of the argument the most however it would be equally easy for a customer to put a RJ11 plug into a RJ45 jack. It would be easy enough to plug it into the wrong port if someone is reaching behind a desk or simply isn't paying attention. In residential, I really like doing it as Stamp mentioned. Everything RJ45 with patch cables between the patch panel and switches or phone distribution. I was hoping to have a resounding yes or no but I see both sides.

So just make a bunch of patch cables with RJ11 for phone side and RJ45 on wall side if the RJ11s don't fit snugly into Cat 5 ports. It was a dream to move into a new apt where all phone/data ports were RJ-45 so we could assign the ports to whatever purpose we wanted.

OnQ and others make break-out boxes/dongles that you can plug into 568A-jacks and assign to phone 1, phone 2, phone 3, 4 ... or any combination thereof (or leave as data).

Hey, I finally joined the "Double Post" club!

I don't think either the phone or the router (or switch) would be damaged by this.


True. I don't think "someone might do it wrong" is a reason for obliterating the mechanical differences that at least make it impossible to connect a network device to dial tone and ring tone. That makes it "it's really easy to do it wrong," which is worse.


In residential, you're more likely to have the client, who is less informed about these issues, make changes at some point and amke any mistake that can be made, so it's a good thing not to build in possible mistakes -- use RJ11 and RJ45 jacks.

Besides, just how hard is doing it right?

Also, I've run a CAT5 dedicated to phone use, and used the ancient phone installer technique of wrapping the unused wires around the jacket... then years later they need another dial tone device there, and lookie lookie -- there's two pairs of wire, ready to be used! If you punch down four pairs into an RJ45 that's used for phone, then later want to add a phone, it's a pretty clumsy thing to do.


And just how hard is doing it right?


This "issue" proposes that when you do connection work at a site and one end has been punched down, you don't look to see if the previous guy used A or B. I'd say that standard practice is to see what has already been done, and either use that or repunch it to match what you want to use.


If I follow this correctly, you take four out of eight wires and crimp them into a connector. You can't use the strain relief properties of the connector, because there's not enough room in the connector to get the other four wires (cut short) and the jacket inside it. This is not a reliable method, especially when this splice is done at the telephone end -- the client can easily move the phone here to there while using it, stressing that non-standard connection.

How difficult is doing it right?

I use 6 pin EZ connectors. Only 2 wires are cut short but they and the jacket are pulled tight into the connector. There is zero issue with strain relief.


Right is a relative term. Imagine this conversation when the first automobile rolled off the assembly line and people were discussing the right way to get from one town to the next.

I have been with the same company now for over a decade. About 7 years ago we created a standard for our company that has every Cat5 or Cat6 cable being terminated as 568A at the wall plate and at the rack. So far i have only done 1 full system upgrade that allowed me to take advantage of this and boy oh boy did it save me some time. Phast to Crestron.

I was able to go to each room and simply disconnect everything. I didnt have to re-terminate anything or take wall plates out of the walls. I just had to create new pig tails. So some of the RJ45 jacks that were previously used for the old Panasonic phone system are now being used for access points. An old TV location is the new cordless phone base station location. The office that had 4 ethernet jacks now has 1 with an 8 port switch and the other 3 jacks are used to add a TV to the room.