Many many many people use rj45s for phones. Most people will label the jacks or color code.

Blue being date

White for phone.

How much unplugging will you do once everything is set up?

Also the risk you are talking about is extremely low.





 

I'm a vendor too and never ever wire a voice drop to an RJ45.  I see zero advantage to doing it that way - especially if you're termination on the frame is a 66 block.  To me it's it's lazy and/or not knowing any better.   

We use RJ45 jacks for all voice and data connections. Advantages are many, but mainly, if you have only one jack left in your "bag of tricks" it is going to work for voice or data and you don't have to worry about coming back to replace it at a later date. When you are trying to keep up with thousands of connetions in multiple buildings, that is a big advantage.

Also wiring with rj45 will give you room to switch to a different phone systems.  Some now require rj45 and the cables the phones come with are rj45.  

What phone system uses an RJ45?   

Apparrently, older Merlin Legends do.

in the early 80's AT&T set it standard as a RJ45 ,with it's 4 pair cable to adapt to it any , of it phones & data modules , depending on what pairs were used or needed   is what you wired at the 66 block

what you wired at the 66 block

should say cross connect at the 66 block   

yea the upside down mounting of the jack is one thing but rj45 for voice is becoming very normal nowadays.

we do it and all of our competitors do it.

also for IP phones they require it.  

So wire the business once and they are ready for whatever comes their way.

 

Not sure you guys are following me here... I've never seen an analog/digital phone system (NOT VoIP) that used an RJ-45 connector on their phones.  VoIP is an entirely different beast that uses existing network cabling.

If they're upgrading from analog/digital to VoIP - there's no need to run new cable - they use their existing network infrastructure - VoIP phone plugs into existing jack, PC plugs in to VoIP phone.  Done.  Just have to have PoE switches, VLAN's set up, QoS, etc... etc... and PoE isn't even necessary if your phones will take an external power supply or an inline PoE power injector.  

If they're doing VoIP from the get-go (i.e., new construction), they're using an existing data drop at the user's desk - there's NO need to run a separate network connection dedicated VoIP, so long as their switches are configured properly for it.  Some customers insist on it - but that's because either they have network security requirements that call for it, their network infrastructure is not ready for it, or they don't know what they're doing.  In most cases, VoIP phone systems integrate with their networks.  

What I'm talking about is an existing facility with a analog/digital phone system and a separate data network.  And for that, you have to use RJ-11 jacks for voice - otherwise you're sending 48 volts from the PBX (or telco if they're dedicated lines for fax, alarm systems, etc...) into a NIC and creating the potential for damage to the customer's equipment - can't plug an RJ-45 into an RJ-11, and there's a reason why they went that route when the standards were created.  If you're punching your voice cable down at the frame into 66-blocks, BIX, 110, etc... they're being cross-connected to the phone system, and not into your network infrastructure.  

Yes, I've seen customers insist on terminating everything to regular 110-patch panels with RJ-45's and using CAT5 patch cables to cross-connect everything, but it's very expensive, looks like crap, a nightmare to maintain - especially when you're getting into 100's or 1,000's of phones), and in the end creates more work.  In the real world - you terminate all your voice to 66-blocks (or BIX - I prefer 66 blocks) and use inexpensive cross-connect wire to link everything up.   

 

We do rj45 period unless the customer request otherwise. We terminate to. Cat5e patch panels labeled voice and data, jacks are color coded white amd blue. Blue8 and orange etc. This way they are fully ready for anything including moving phones on their own.  

"Friends,Romans,Countrymen lend me your ears I come to ask for help and to give it, lets not argue on who is best or worst lets just help each other"

I've been in this business for over twenty years and have NEVER used an RJ45 for voice.  Or for data.  RJ45 spec defines the wiring as one pair on center pins and a programming resistor on pins 7 & 8.  I'd be willing to wager that few of you have really used an RJ45 either.

 That said, any new cabling projects use 568B wiring to a patch panel or 110 block.  Can then be patched to voice/data/fax/etc.  Generally there is no harm in plugging a phone into a jack patched to Ethernet switch, nor is there harm in plugging a network device into a voice jack - at least a "one pair" voice jack where there is no voltage on 3 & 6.
 

nessman-

they make wire management to organize the patch cables... the installs i do look beautiful

maintaining is if anything easier with patch panels.  All i have to do is plug in a patch cable instead of cross connecting/punchdown

i honestly prefer it and all of our customers do as well.  The only time we now use 110 blocks/66 blocks is when it is entirely necessary

i even terminate 25 pair amphenol from the pbx to a patch panel.  It really makes moves alot easier  

What about the RJ11 cords bending up pins 1 and 8 rendering the jacks useless for anything that uses those pins.  

I have installed 568B to patch panels for VOIP voice, but make custom cords with RJ11 at one end and An 8P8C plug on the other for fax machines to use.

It pretty much boils down to using the correct jack for the application. If an analog or digital phone requires only 1 pair, then use 6p2c jacks, 2 pairs go with 6p4c, 4 pairs use 8p8c. Color coded jacks & cabling is a plus as are good labels.

I "FEATURE 00"

Dex, I've never seen a jack with only 2 pins :)

jeff moss
 

I still use RJ11 for voice for the simple reason, a customer can not plug their computer into the phone jack. It is a pain for me to carry both but the alternative causes to much confusion for my customer. Labels fall off and desks get moved in front of jacks so you can't read them.
your competition most likey finds it cheaper to carry only one type of jack.It's always nice to see others doing things wrong (like upside down jacks), if I can I try to casually point it out to the customer without being critical.
If customers want us to compete on price only, they must be prepared to get what they paid for.

"Dex, I've never seen a jack with only 2 pins  "

Doh! I was thinking of plugs.

Good eye Jeff!

I "FEATURE 00"

And today... ran into the very reason why voice jacks should never be wired up as data.  Doing some moves at a customer site today... office furniture in front of the wall plate - customer already ran the CAT5 patch cable for his computer and phone line for his phone before furniture was moved in front of it.  No network connectivity to computer, phone dead.  Tone out phone line - showing continuity across all pins, no tone at 66-block the IDF.  

Had to have customer clear out his desk, have maintenance come by, remove furniture (cubicle partitions by the way), turns out - yup... PC plugged into voice jack - getting a nice healthy shot of 48VDC into the NIC (good thing it wasn't an analog line that was ringing jumping it up to 90VAC), and phone plugged into the data jack.  

NOW... had my competitor not done this to begin with - everything would have worked the first time around - rather than wasting billable time back to the customer to fix the problem in the first place.  This goes to show that the ordinary end user doesn't know the difference.  At this facility, data is grey, voice is black.  But with jack numbers of 467, 467A, 467.1 and 467.3 - means NOTHING to the average Joe trying to get his computer and phone to work.  To me it does - but that's my job, not the end-users.  467 and 467A are data, 467.1 is digital voice (WH/BL pair) and 467.3 is for analog voice/fax/modem (WH/GR pair).  That's the wiring standard at this customer - but the jacks are not correct for voice.  

Of course, if the NIC on the PC or laptop has pins 4-5 protected and not connected to anything - sure little chance of causing harm (bear in mind for PoE applications 4, 5, 7 and 8 are used to deliver 48VDC to the device).  However, there are places that use multi-line analog phones, starting on pins 4-5 for Line 1, 3-6 for Line 2, etc... that's where you start running into problems with using RJ45 jacks on voice lines.  Ethernet usually runs around 2.2VDC, and when you have Line 2 ringing into a PC plugged into a two-line analog jack - you're asking for problems.  

The price difference between CAT3/USOC jacks and CAT5/T568B jacks is negligible.  No reason not to do it the right way.  

If the customer later on decides to dump analog/digital voice and go all VoIP and insists on running VoIP on it's own separate network and they need the voice jack converted to data, then it's more money for you.  
 

Medium sized hospital here.
We run white cat5e for voice, terminating in white rj45 jacks on one end and all 4 pairs laid down on 110 blocks or 66 blocks, on the other end. That way if we need another phone we're pretty much ready to go.
For data we use blue cat6 and blue rj45's rated for cat6. IT guys know this convention and so does the phone man (me). Subscribers better not be into any of that stuff. But we're not hardnosed, it just won't work if they screw around with it and get it wrong.
Never had an issue with -48v or -96v hitting the computers.
Analog wall phones are the only rj11 jacks around here.
And no problems.

20 years and have never seen a phone jack damage a PC or vice versa.

Lots of ATT/Lucent/Avaya sets use aditional pins even still today.  Power on 7&8 for expansion modules on digital sets.  Consoles also need power on 7&8.  Lots of the phones like 8410's come with 8 conductor cords which wont fit into Rj11 jacks.  8410's will work on a single pair digital on 4&5 OR a 2 pair digital on 1,2,3&6.  Finding 300 Rj11 cords during a Friday night move can be difficult even if you're only using 1 pair.

Bottom line, there is noting wrong with 8 conductors on a voice jack.  Mounting all of the plates upside down seems a bit unusual though.

Never seen an RJ11 cord damage an 8 conductor jack either.  Avaya actually provides RJ11 cords with digital sets yet the digital sets have an 8 conductor socket on the bottom so you can switch to the 8 conductor cord for power once an expansion module is needed.  They are not providing a cord with the phone that's going to damage the 8 conductor socket.  They would be making themselves liable for damaging every phone they sell.





 

-CL
 

AT&T/Lucent/Avaya used 8p8c jacks for station ports and system phones on Partner equipment in order to allow people upgrading from Classic Merlin systems (206/410/820/820D) to reuse existing cabling. Partner MLS/Euro 1/Euro 2 sets require only 2 pairs of wires and new installations are generally done with 2 pair cabling and 6p4c station jacks.

I "FEATURE 00"

Hi, over here in little old N.Z, we just use rj45 for all cabling wired to a patch panel. We then wire the phone system to patch panels and use standard patch leads to connect. We use pins 4&5 for our 2wire digital and analog cuts so no issue plugging nic card in by accident as it is using 1,2,3&6. The only issue we have is 4wire Panasonic, they will shut down the digital ccts if a computer is plugged in them by mistake. Nic cards are pretty resilient, I've not seen one damaged yet by plugging in to the wrong port.

As a customer I would expect to see RJ11 jacks if cat3 was run and rj45 if cat5 or better.
If you are using cat5 my vote is it's a data drop and should be treated as such, even if you are using it for telephones.

For 20 years I have never heard of frying a NIC either. As Cody mentioned most phones use pins 4 and 5.
I think they still make 66 blocks with RJ45's on them.

While single line telephones (SLTs) use pins 4 & 5 of an 8p8c jack, choosing a 6p4c jack would seem to be the way to go for such an application.

I "FEATURE 00"

Most of the office space I deal with now is frequently changed around or re-purposed. For that reason, a lot of plans are specifying 8p8c jacks irrespective of end use and nothing less than 5e cabling irrespective of use. I use a plastic insert that reduced the 8p8c profile to that of a 6p4c jack like this:
http://www.globalpc.co.nz/product.aspx?ProductID=P1502
This way, I can designate an analog voice jack that rejects a patch cable, but if the use changes, instead of re-punching a new jack, I just pull the reducer insert. My experience with the inserts is that in addition to the visual cue that it is not a data jack, it keeps the plugs aligned so that there is no damage to the pins when a 6p4c is inserted. I do not presume to suggest this is "right" or "wrong" as such. I am presenting it as one option. One benefit I have enjoyed with this is that when changes are needed and this method is used, the cabling is very predictable as every 4 pair cable is terminated to the same standard and when I do the certification tests, all 4 pairs get passed during one test, and when a jack is changed from analog voice to data, I do not need to re-certify the run because one or two pair that were not used in the 6p4c are then re-punched into a 8p8c jack.

dont plug a pc into a key port on a ip office as it will blow the card we have had cust do this twice now

Some of the early systems blew a fuse if you just looked at it crosseyed, Intertel being notorious for doing that. The Comdial Executech was one of the first systems that used protection on the ports so a short would take out either the power or the data mate, but not the whole system.

Of course, in those early systems, nobody was doing structured cabling, so you wouldn't spring the expense of 8-pin jacks for voice. We still try to split the cables, leftovers from the old days, where we terminate only 2 pairs on a 6-pin jack, but leave slack so the cables can be reterminated on 8-pin jacks in the future.

LkEErie

yes its a giant waste of money to use data jacks for voice and terminating them on patch panels unless the customer
is going to move to a ip system . 6 pos jacks stop morons from plugging data plugs into telephone system

I thought you guys would be interested to know that in Australia the standard telephone outlet is now an 8P8C ( I don't use the term RJ45 because that specifies how it is wired and is a Telecommunications designation not a data one) With a structured cabling system all cabling should be interchangeable and in OZ most if not all new installs are purely cat 5E or above even in domestic installs! In fact we have just started rolling out a new national broadband network using fibre to the home that will see our copper network retired and I believe the lowest standard cable from the network boundary will be cat6!

See here for a typical Australian thread on cabling

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t...

Please note, in australia cablers must be licensed so there is no discussion on the how to's there!

Speaking as a member of the in-house IT/Telecom team for a rather large firm (offices in 14 cities around the globe and 6,500+ phones), we have demanded Cat5 (5e)& RJ45s. They are not color coded; all jacks are white. Our rationale is basically to allow us to 'repurpose' a jack at any time.

All offices are cabled in a very uniform manner. Each "drop" is ALWAYS a 4 port drop, with the exception being wall phones in the elevator lobbies. The 4 port face place is labeled with a Floor # and "Drop #" -- so a cable plugged into the third port on the quad "21-014" indicates it terminates to the 21st floor IDF, jack #014, and being the 3rd port, it will go to the "C" patch panel.

In the IDF, we can can patch that to either a network switch, a voice riser patch panel, ISDNs (legacy VTC equipment), or even to a serial port, as needed. Traditionally, the first jack ("A") on the quad is always a the phone. The last port ("D") is data. As additional data ports are needed, they move to C, then to B.

The legacy PBXes were cross-connected at a 110 block to the Voice Riser patch panels.

This flexibility allowed us to transition our offices from legacy TDM PBXes (Nortel Meridian Option 11c / 61c) to a VoIP solution quickly and easily -- no additional cable drops needed. On the night of the cutovers, only thing needed was to move patch cables from the voice riser patch panel to the new VoIP VLAN switches while a tech swapped out the physical phones at the desks. No new cable drops, no changing jacks from RJ11 to RJ45. The transition in each office was pretty quick, smooth and seamless.

Also, we do not ever use the the PC port on the back of a VoIP phone. The issue with using the VoIP phone as a network switch is that if the phone reboots for any reason (i.e. configuration changes), it takes down the PC's network connection until the phone restarts completely. Interrupting a PC's connection, even momentarily, is to be avoided at all costs in our firm.

The idea it to cable for almost any possible need. It is very very rare that we ever have to call a cable vender to add additional drops in any of our offices, after the initial build-out.

We have used this as our firm standard for well over 15 years and I can't think of any reports of damaged equipment resulting from someone making a cabling mistake. Worse case has been reports of "not working" and the local tech comes by and plugs in the device into the correct jack then walks away -- no damage ever.

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Its all fun and games until someone plugs my computer into phone jack and fries my main board.

It would only be a problem if you pluged into a gigabit network not a 10/100 Base T network they don't use pins 4 &5 that would be used for telephone.
Giga bit uses all the pairs
fiber is better

Actually if you look back at where we have come from in telecom AT&T Bell Labs went radical in creating what would be known as the T568B standard. Initially it was used as thier proprietary wiring diagram using 4,5 and 1,2 for digital telephones and requiring 7,8 to be connected for OHVA. If 3,6 were used I dont remember it. This was produced at the end of the 1A2 era and was far more econimical than 25 pair minimum per station. The use of Cat 5cable for voice and data is quite common today so it only makes sense to terminate it on C5 jacks. All that is needed to convert to voice cabling to data for VoIp sets is retermination in the phone room. If the jack is pins down so what its a jack it doesnt look right to the .1% of the population that are phone guys but users dont care. As well many companies have corporate policies that restrict telecom from being on the corporate data network so the into the phone out to the computer deal isnt ok. I guess to sum it up if you got outbid fine, either they lost money if your price was spot on or you're charging too much and pricing yourself out of the market. Either way it will work itself out in the end.

My Bad 12 36 for the AT@T digitals with 7,8 OHVA that is if I am remembering 20 years ago correctly, then again something else is screaming violet/slate is ground and none of the lights red or white will light without it. Course might be black/slate too lol eh just ground it to the chassis you will be fine.

Try not to post after the Presidential debate drinking game in the future okay?

LkEErie

yup you're right lol my bad.

Heck, I remember when trunks had 6 wires T,R,S,C,E,M and carrier systems (when they were used) were K or N Carrier, and you connect wires not with a punch tool or wire wrap gun, but a 400 watt soldering iron.

You lost the contract because the compition offered something better so quit your whinning and pull up your panties and get back to work....

Absolutely use 8 conductor, 568B scheme for all work outlets. No need for RJ11 anymore. Not even faxes or other analog applications as the RJ11 will fit into the RJ45 with no problem. Try going the other way and see what happens. Thanks.

Here in the UK, I've always installed as structured wiring, with RJ45's at the desk, terminated back to a patch panel (and then some!) by the phone system & network kit. We only liven ports as required, and with more and more systems going VOIP, they're more likely to want to turn that voice port into a data port in the future. Also allows us to run Serial devices over the structured wiring with a bit of patching (sometimes occurs with Serial PED's on the counter connected to a terminal on the wall behind a gangway).
But then again, we don't let users move stuff round on their own without having had training :)

Alex Threlfall
Cyberprog New Media
http://www.cyberprog.net
Telecoms, Networks, Hosting, Alarms, CCTV etc.