Telephone (North America) Two lines

S

Spehro Pefhany

Guest
Hi, what's the usual way of doing two phone lines in North American
residences?

1) Using inner and outer pairs of an RJ11 connector?

2) Using inner pairs of two RJ11 connectors?

Or does it vary from place to place etc.?


Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany
--
"it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com
 
On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 18:24:18 -0500, Spehro Pefhany
<speffSNIP@interlogDOTyou.knowwhat> wrote:

Hi, what's the usual way of doing two phone lines in North American
residences?

1) Using inner and outer pairs of an RJ11 connector?

2) Using inner pairs of two RJ11 connectors?

Or does it vary from place to place etc.?


Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany
Click to expand...
It's really a function of who pre-wired the house. My house is wired
as (1), except for my office where I have two RJ11s, one with the two
lines of voice and the other the fax (and DSL when I had it) line.

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice:(480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax:(480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.
 
Spehro Pefhany wrote:

Hi, what's the usual way of doing two phone lines in North American
residences?

1) Using inner and outer pairs of an RJ11 connector?

2) Using inner pairs of two RJ11 connectors?

Or does it vary from place to place etc.?


Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany
Click to expand...
Any, either -- single-line phones ignore the outer pair, dual line
phones follow (1). Sometimes you'll see dual jacks that put line 1 on
the inside of one jack and line 2 on the inside of the other so you can
mix and match in various phenomenal ways.

--

Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com
 
Spehro posted:

<< Hi, what's the usual way of doing two phone lines in North American
residences?

1) Using inner and outer pairs of an RJ11 connector?

2) Using inner pairs of two RJ11 connectors?

Or does it vary from place to place etc.?
The US Standard for two lines is a RJ14C "configuration". Physically it is as
you describe.

The RJ11 and RJ14 configurations both use a 6 position miniature modular jack
and plug.

Pins 3 and 4 are line 1 Ring & Tip, respectively.

Pins 2 and 5 are line 2 Tip & Ring, respectively.

I'm fairly certain that Canada uses the same arrangements, but with differently
named configurations.

As to "does it change from place to place?.... It can, because on the customer
side of the NI the customer can do anything they want with jacks, plugs, and
hard-wire. The Standard configurations are *required* only at the NI.

Don
 
RE: "The RJ11 and RJ14 configurations both use a 6 position miniature modular
jack
and plug."

But I intended to caution that although the ANSI
Standard *requires* the specific jack, the plug is "advisory" except where it
is provided within a telco owned NI box. As a result, some manufacturers used
to, and still might, put pins at positions 3 and 4 of their packaged "RJ11,"
but not in positions 2 and 5. The point is, you need to be careful when you
order a plug and jack set.

Don
 
As others have mentioned the use of RJ.. terminology is no longer
correct and modular connector is the preferred term.
Click to expand...
It was never correct, when referring to the plug.
It's a service order code on how to wire the jack.
A 6 pin modular jack is simply that, not (and never has been) an
RJ-Whatever.
 
On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 01:28:49 +0000, Dbowey wrote:

RE: "The RJ11 and RJ14 configurations both use a 6 position miniature modular
jack
and plug."

But I intended to caution that although the ANSI
Standard *requires* the specific jack, the plug is "advisory" except where it
is provided within a telco owned NI box. As a result, some manufacturers used
to, and still might, put pins at positions 3 and 4 of their packaged "RJ11,"
but not in positions 2 and 5. The point is, you need to be careful when you
order a plug and jack set.

Some years ago, I had a home office with RJ-14 jacks, with the panels
Click to expand...
wired with 2112 on top and 1221 on the bottom. As it happened one day,
I had a friend over and was showing her my laptop, and she promptly
dialed in to the BBS that we were both members of. I sat at the other
computer, which was AFAIK plugged into line 2, and as soon as my
modem went off-hook, she got hung up on. The only thing I can think of is
that the modem I was using did something to pins 1&4 when connecting - I
don't specifically remember if I swapped the 4-wire cord for a 2-wire on
the spot, but when I did, the problem went away. The old, old style 4-
prong jacks used to use all four wires for something important, I seem to
recall, although that could be just that the 2 were reserved for phone
company use - I once saw the wiring in a guy's house that was so old that
he still had the little telco wall wart for powering the trimline plugged
in in the basement. It used pins 1&4 for lamp power.

Things have no doubt improved considerably since then. :)

I really just wanted to brag about having had a babe visit my office.
<leer, snort>.

Cheers!
Rich
 
On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 00:13:30 -0500, "Dave VanHorn"
<dvanhorn@cedar.net> wrote:

As others have mentioned the use of RJ.. terminology is no longer
correct and modular connector is the preferred term.

It was never correct, when referring to the plug.
It's a service order code on how to wire the jack.
A 6 pin modular jack is simply that, not (and never has been) an
RJ-Whatever.

No argument from me on that. However, it is fact that despite what
Click to expand...
"never has been" the popular terminology "RJ.." was applied almost
universally back 10 years or so. It will take a bit longer yet for the
common usage to disappear.
 
No argument from me on that. However, it is fact that despite what
"never has been" the popular terminology "RJ.." was applied almost
universally back 10 years or so. It will take a bit longer yet for the
common usage to disappear.
Click to expand...
Yup. :p

I used to have one of those USOC books, I got it back when I was wrestling
with GTE in Hawaii.
We ordered RJ-31X jacks for alarm use, and I'd swear that they never wired
one twice the same way, and never wired one right..

We used to just take whatever they did, fix it back to USOC, and move on,
until they threatened to sue us over it. Then we took them to the PUC, and
explained our case. Many many wasted hours and trips to re-do their work,
and no point asking them to fix it, they would either do nothing, or make it
a different broken thing.... The PUC decided that we would "hands off" their
gear, but they would be required to do it right from then on.. The next
install saw SIX supervisors, who took most of a day to install the jack,
pulled power from one operating computer to plug in their drill (to the
extreme displeasure of the engineer using the machine) and damn near
drilling through the power cord (220 or 440V) for the company's mainframe...

After that, things got more serene, and they were wired right most of the
time.


Handy little book though, for resolving such disputes.
Is it like this? No? Then FIX IT!.
 
"Dave VanHorn" <dvanhorn@cedar.net> wrote in message
news:1M6dnRlFrOhnQAfcRVn-gA@comcast.com...
As others have mentioned the use of RJ.. terminology is no longer
correct and modular connector is the preferred term.

It was never correct, when referring to the plug.
It's a service order code on how to wire the jack.
A 6 pin modular jack is simply that, not (and never has been) an
RJ-Whatever.

6 pin modular jacks can be very confusing. It can be an 8 pin with 1 & 8
Click to expand...
missing, or an 8 pin with 7 & 8 missing.

Tam
 
On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 15:30:48 -0800, Tim Wescott wrote:

Spehro Pefhany wrote:

Hi, what's the usual way of doing two phone lines in North American
residences?

1) Using inner and outer pairs of an RJ11 connector?

2) Using inner pairs of two RJ11 connectors?

Or does it vary from place to place etc.?

Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany

Any, either -- single-line phones ignore the outer pair, dual line
phones follow (1). Sometimes you'll see dual jacks that put line 1 on
the inside of one jack and line 2 on the inside of the other so you can
mix and match in various phenomenal ways.
Click to expand...
What Tim said, Speff.
--
Best Regards,
Mike
 
On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 00:04:52 GMT, Jonathan Kirwan wrote:

On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 18:24:18 -0500, Spehro Pefhany
speffSNIP@interlogDOTyou.knowwhat> wrote:

Hi, what's the usual way of doing two phone lines in North American
residences?

1) Using inner and outer pairs of an RJ11 connector?

2) Using inner pairs of two RJ11 connectors?

Boy, I hope I'm not treading into deep water.

The RJ-11 is a wiring specification.
Click to expand...
<snip>[...]

ISTM that the catalogs still call the different connectors by RJ
numbers, no?

At any rate, that was some interesting trivia, whether I ever use it
or not.

--
Best Regards,
Mike
 
The only thing I can think of is
that the modem I was using did something to pins 1&4 when connecting - I
don't specifically remember if I swapped the 4-wire cord for a 2-wire on
the spot, but when I did, the problem went away.
Click to expand...
Ever hear of "A-Lead"?
Many systems implemented this, simply a contact closure on a second pair, to
support key systems that had a hold function.
 
On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 15:51:06 -0500, the renowned Active8
<reply2group@ndbbm.net> wrote:

On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 15:30:48 -0800, Tim Wescott wrote:

Spehro Pefhany wrote:

Hi, what's the usual way of doing two phone lines in North American
residences?

1) Using inner and outer pairs of an RJ11 connector?

2) Using inner pairs of two RJ11 connectors?

Or does it vary from place to place etc.?

Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany

Any, either -- single-line phones ignore the outer pair, dual line
phones follow (1). Sometimes you'll see dual jacks that put line 1 on
the inside of one jack and line 2 on the inside of the other so you can
mix and match in various phenomenal ways.

What Tim said, Speff.
Click to expand...
Yup, mucho thanks. I'm putting three modular jacks in to cover the
possibilities. ;-)


Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany
--
"it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com
 
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