11/7/2009 Registered jack - Wikipedia, the free en…

Registered jack
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A registered jack (RJ) is a standardized 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, 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 Left to right, RJ connectors:
of the modular connector and 50-pin miniature ribbon
an eight-contact 8P8C plug (used for RJ49,
connector types. For example, RJ11 uses a 6 position 4
RJ61 and others, but often called "RJ45"
conductor (6P4C) modular plug and jack, while RJ21 uses because of its outward semblance to the true
a 50-pin miniature ribbon connector. RJ45)
six-contact RJ25 plug
four-contact RJ14 plug (often also used
instead of two-pin RJ11)
Contents a four-contact handset plug (also popularly,
though incorrectly, called "RJ22", "RJ10", or
1 Naming confusion "RJ9")
2 Twisted pair RJ25 and RJ14 can be plugged into the same
3 History and authority standard six-pin jack, pictured.
4 International use
5 Registered jack types
5.1 "Unofficial" (incorrect) plug names
6 See also
7 External links

Naming confusion
Strictly, "registered jack" refers to both the female physical connector (modular connector) and its wiring, but the
term is often used loosely to refer to modular connectors regardless of wiring, such as in Ethernet over twisted pair.

There is much confusion over these connection standards. The six-position plug and jack commonly used for
telephone line connections may be used for RJ11, RJ14 or even RJ25, all of which are actually names of interface
standards that use this physical connector. The RJ11 standard dictates a 2-wire connection, while RJ14 uses a 4-
wire configuration, and RJ25 uses all six wires. The RJ abbreviations, though, only pertain to the wiring of the jack
(hence the name "registered jack"); it is commonplace but not strictly correct to refer to an unwired plug connector
by any of these names.

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Plugs and jacks of this type are often called modular connectors, which originally distinguished them from older
telephone connectors, which were very bulky or wired directly to the wall and therefore not accommodating of
modular systems. A common nomenclature for modular connectors is e.g. "6P" to indicate a six-position modular
plug or jack. Sometimes the nomenclature is expanded to indicate the number of positions that contain conductors.
For example, a six-position modular plug with conductors in the middle two positions and the other four positions
unused is called a 6P2C. RJ11 uses a 6P plug; furthermore, it often uses a 6P2C. (The connectors could be
supplied more pins, but if more pins are actually wired, the interface is no longer an RJ11.)

Registered jacks were created by the FCC to be the standard interface between a telephone company and a
customer. The wired communications provider (telephone company) is responsible for delivery of services to a
minimum point of entry (MPOE) (physically a utility box) which connects the telephone/network wiring on the
customer's property (CPE - Customer-premises equipment) to the communication provider's network. The
customer is responsible for jacks, wiring, and equipment on their side of the MPOE. The intent is to establish a
universal standard for wiring and interfaces, and to separate ownership of in-home (or in-office) telephone wiring
away from (North America's) Bell Systems and relinquish ownership of wiring in an entity's owned structure to that
entity.

The various interfaces created due to this regulation were numbered and integrated into the telecommunications'
order system by adopting them as Universal Service Order Codes (USOC). USOCs are commonly passed to the
communications provider by large businesses for a variety of services. Because there are many standardized
interface options available to the customer, the customer must specify the type of interface required, by RJ/USOC.
And for a multi-line interface such as the RJ21, they must denote which position(s) of the interface are to be used. If
there are multiple RJ21 connectors, they are numbered sequentially and the customer must advise the
communications provider of which one to use.

Twisted pair
See also: Category 5 cable and TIA/EIA-568-B

While the plugs are generally used with a flat cable (a notable exception being Ethernet twisted-pair cabling used
with the 8P8C modular plug), the long cables feeding them in the building wiring and the phone network before
them are normally twisted pair. Wiring conventions were designed to take full advantage of the physical
compatibility 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. In connecting cables, however,
the performance differences between the pairs that are assigned to different pins are minimal, and in general use
T568A and T568B patch cables are interchangeable.

History and authority

For more details on this topic, see Interconnection.

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Under the Bell System monopoly (following the Communications Act of 1934), the Bell System owned the phones
and did not allow interconnection of separate phones or other terminal equipment; a popular saying was "Ma Bell
has you by the calls". Phones were generally hardwired, or at times used proprietary Bell System connectors.

This began to change with the case Hush-A-Phone v. United States [1956] and the FCC's Carterfone [1968]
decision, which required Bell to allow some interconnection, which culminated in registered jacks.

Registered jacks were introduced by the Bell System in the 1970s under a 1976 FCC order ending the use of
protective couplers. They replaced earlier, bulkier connectors. The Bell System issued specifications for the
modular connectors and their wiring as Universal Service Ordering Codes (USOC), which were the only standard
at the time.

When the US telephone industry was opened to more competition in the 1980s, the specifications were made a
matter of US law, ordered by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and codified in the Code of
Federal Regulations, 47 CFR 68, subpart F.

In January 2001, the FCC turned over responsibility for standardizing connections to the telephone network to a
new private industry organization, the Administrative Council for Terminal Attachment (ACTA). The FCC removed
Subpart F from the CFR and added Subpart G, which delegates the task to the ACTA. The ACTA published a
standard called TIA/EIA-IS-968 which contained the information that was formerly in the CFR. The current
version of that standard, called TIA-968-A, specifies the modular connectors at length, but not the wiring. Instead,
TIA-968-A incorporates a standard called T1.TR5-1999 by reference to specify the wiring. Note that a registered
jack name such as RJ11 identifies both the physical connectors and the wiring (pinout) of it (see above).

International use
The modular jack was chosen as a candidate for ISDN systems. In order to be considered, the connector system
had to be defined under international standards. In turn this led to ISO 8877. Under the rules of the IEEE 802
standards project, international standards are to be preferred over national standards so the modular connector was
chosen for IEEE 802.3i-1990, the original 10BASE-T twisted-pair wiring version of Ethernet.

Registered jack types

The most familiar registered jack is probably the RJ11. This is a 6 position modular connector wired for one phone
line, and is found in most homes and offices in North America for single line telephones.

RJ14 and RJ25 are also fairly common, using the same size connector as RJ11, but with two and three phone lines,
respectively, connected.

Essentially all one, two, and three line analog telephones made today (2009) are meant to plug into RJ11, RJ14, or
RJ25 jacks, respectively.

The true RJ45(S) is an extremely uncommon registered jack, but the name "RJ45" is also used quite commonly to
refer to any 8P8C modular connector.

Many of the basic names have suffixes that indicate subtypes:

C: flush-mount or surface mount

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W: wall-mount
S: single-line
M: multi-line
X: complex jack

For example, RJ11 comes in two forms: RJ11W is a jack from which you can hang a wall telephone, while RJ11C
is a jack designed to have a cord plugged into it. (You can plug a cord into an RJ11W as well, but it usually doesn't
look as nice as a cord plugged into an RJ11C.)

RJ2MB: 50-pin miniature ribbon connector, 2-12 telephone lines with make-busy
RJ11C/RJ11W: 6P2C, for one telephone line (6P4C with power on second pair)
RJ12C/RJ12W: 6P6C, for one telephone line ahead of the key system (key telephone system)
RJ13C/RJ13W: 6P4C, for one telephone line behind the key system (key telephone system)
RJ14C/RJ14W: 6P4C, for two telephone lines (6P6C with power on third pair)
RJ15C: 3-pin weatherproof, for one telephone line
RJ18C/RJ18W : 6P6C, for one telephone line with make-busy arrangement
RJ21X: 50-pin miniature ribbon connector, for up to 25 lines
RJ25C/RJ25W: 6P6C, for three telephone lines
RJ26X: 50-pin miniature ribbon connector, for multiple data lines, universal
RJ27X: 50-pin miniature ribbon connector, for multiple data lines, programmed
RJ31X: 8P8C (although usually only 4C are used), Often incorrectly stated as allowing alarm (fire and
intrusion) equipment to seize a phone line, the jack is actually used to disconnect the equipment from the
phone line while allowing the phone circuit to continue to the site phones.
RJ38X: 8P8C, similar to RJ31X, with continuity circuit
RJ41S: 8P8C keyed, for one data line, universal
RJ45S: 8P2C + keyed, for one data line with programming resistor
RJ48S: 8P8C, for four-wire data line (DDS)
RJ48C: 8P8C, for four-wire data line (DSX-1)
RJ48X: 8P8C with shorting bar, for four-wire data line (DS1)
RJ49C: 8P8C, for ISDN BRI via NT1
RJ61X: 8P8C, for four telephone lines
RJ71C: 12 line series connection using 50 pin connector (with bridging adapter) ahead of customer
equipment. Mostly used for call sequencer equipment.

"Unofficial" (incorrect) plug names

These "RJ" names do not really refer to truly existing ACTA RJ types:

"RJ9", "RJ10", "RJ22": 4P4C or 4P2C, for telephone handsets. Since telephone handsets do not connect
directly to the public network, they have no registered jack code whatsoever.
"RJ45": 8P8C, informal designation for T568A/T568B, including Ethernet; not the same as the true
RJ45/RJ45S
"RJ50": 10P10C, for data

See also

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Telephone plug
Interconnection

External links
RJ glossary (http://www.arcelect.com/RJ_Jack_Glossary.htm)
TIA-968-A (http://www.part68.org/documents_order_disclaimer.aspx?ID=5) - Contains dimensions for
jacks and plugs.
RJ reference (http://www.accesscomms.com.au/reference/RJreference.htm) - Descriptions and applications
Administrative Council for Terminal Attachments (http://www.part68.org/)
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Categories: Registered jacks

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