Twisted pair

See also: Category 5 cable and TIA/EIA-568-B Cables terminated in registered jack connectors used in building wiring and the telephone network normally consist of twisted pairs of wires. Wiring conventions were designed to take full advantage of the physical compatibility, thereby ensuring that using a smaller plug in a larger socket would pick up complete pairs, not a (relatively useless) two half pairs. But here again, there has been a problem. The original concept was that the centre two pins would be one pair, the next two out the second pair, and so on until the outer pins of an eight-pin connector would be the fourth twisted pair. Additionally, signal shielding was optimised by alternating the live (hot) and earthy (ground) pins of each pair. This standard for the eight-pin connector is the USOC-defined pinout, but the outermost pair are then too far apart to meet the electrical requirements of high-speed LAN protocols. Two variations known as T568A and T568B overcome this by using adjacent pairs of the outer four pins for the third and fourth pairs. For T568A, the inner four pins are wired identically to those in RJ14. In the T568B variant, different pairs are assigned to different pins, so a T568B jack is incompatible with the wiring pattern of RJ14. However, in relatively short connecting cables the performance differences between the pairs that are assigned to different pins are minimal, and T568A and T568B patch cables are usually regarded as interchangeable in general use. A registered jack (RJ) is a standardized[1][2][3] physical network interface both jack construction and wiring pattern for connecting telecommunications or data equipment to a service provided by a local exchange carrier or long distance carrier. The standard designs for these connectors and their wiring are named RJ11, RJ14, RJ21, RJ45, RJ48, etc. Many of these interface standards are commonly used in North America, though some interfaces are used world-wide. The physical connectors that registered jacks use are mainly of the modular connector and 50-pin miniature ribbon connector types. For example, RJ11 uses a 6 position 2 conductor (6P2C) modular plug and jack, while RJ21 uses a 50-pin miniature ribbon connector.

Common types

6P4C crimp-on style connector commonly used for RJ11 and RJ14

The most familiar registered jack is probably the RJ11. This is a modular connector wired for one plain old telephone service line (using two wires out of six available positions), and is found in most homes and offices in most countries of the world for single-line telephones.[5] Essentially all one, two, and three line analog telephones made today (2009) are meant to plug into RJ11, RJ14, or RJ25 jacks, respectively. RJ14 is similar, but for two lines, and RJ25 is for three lines. RJ61 is a similar registered jack for four lines. The telephone line cord and its plug are more often a true RJ11 with only two conductors. The true RJ45(S) jack is rarely used, but the name RJ45 commonly refers to any 8P8C modular connector RJ45 is the common name for an 8P8C modular connector using 8 conductors that was also used for both RJ48 and RJ61 registered jacks (which specify pin assignments of the wires in a telephone cable), although "RJ45" was not originally specified as a registered jack with today's Ethernet wiring. The "RJ45" physical connector is standardised as the IEC 60603-7 8P8C modular connector with different "categories" of performance, with all eight conductors present but 8P8C is commonly known as RJ45. The physical dimensions of the male and female connectors are specified in ANSI/TIA-1096-A and ISO-8877 standards and normally wired to the T568A and T568B pinouts specified in the TIA/EIA-568 standard to be compatible with both telephone and Ethernet. A similar standard jack once used for modem/data connections, the RJ45S, used a "keyed" variety of the 8P8C body with an extra tab that prevents it mating with other connectors; the visual difference compared to the more common 8P8C is subtle, but it is a different connector. The original RJ45S [7][8] keyed 8P2C modular connector had pins 5 and 4 wired for tip and ring of a single telephone line and pins 7 and 8 shorting a programming resistor, but is obsolete today. Electronics catalogs commonly advertise 8P8C modular connectors as "RJ45". An installer can wire the jack to any pin-out or use it as part of a generic structured cabling system such as ISO/IEC 15018 or ISO/IEC 11801 using RJ45 patch panels for both phone and data. Virtually all electronic equipment which uses an 8P8C connector (or possibly any 8P connector at all) will document it as an "RJ45" connector.

[edit] Crossover cables

A router to router crossover cable uses two 8 position connectors and a UTP (Unshielded Twisted Pair) cable with differently wired connectors at each end. Although a registered jack specifies the wiring pattern and corresponding form factor rather than just the pin assignments or the physical connector, crossover cables are often incorrectly marketed as "RJ45 crossover cables".

LAN:- local area network (LAN) is a computer network that interconnects computers in a limited area such as a home, school, computer laboratory, or office

building using network media.[1] The defining characteristics of LANs, in contrast to wide area networks (WANs), include their usually higher data-transfer rates, smaller geographic area, and lack of a need for leased telecommunication lines. ARCNET, Token Ring and other technology standards have been used in the past, but Ethernet over twisted pair cabling, and Wi-Fi are the two most common technologies currently used to build LANs.

Cabling
Early LAN cabling had always been based on various grades of coaxial cable. However shielded twisted pair was used in IBM's Token Ring implementation, and in 1984 StarLAN showed the potential of simple unshielded twisted pair by using Cat3 the same simple cable used for telephone systems. This led to the development of 10Base-T (and its successors) and structured cabling which is still the basis of most commercial LANs today. In addition, fiber-optic cabling is increasingly used in commercial applications. As cabling is not always possible, wireless Wi-Fi is now very common in residential premises - and elsewhere where support for mobile laptops and smartphones is important. LANs may have connections with other LANs via leased lines, leased services, or by tunneling across the Internet using virtual private network technologies. Depending on how the connections are established and secured in a LAN, and the distance involved, a LAN may also be classified as a metropolitan area network (MAN) or a wide area network (WAN).