Should the pins on both sides of an RJ11 cable be in the same order?

Question

Is RJ11 pin order like RJ45 where the order is always the same (e.g. Brown is always on the left, when looking from the bottom), or should they be mirrored - one side with red on the green's right, and the other with the green on the red's right?

According to the layouts I saw on the internet it seems that they should be like RJ45 - the same. But when checking an RJ11 cable that I have, it's mirrored - one's left-to-right is the other's right-to-left.

So which one is it?

Solution 1

The simple Answer is yes.

The RJ-11/RJ-14/RJ-25 system uses standardized pair placement, just like RJ45. (T568A/T568B)

The reason for these standards is so that any TELCO technician entering a building will not create wiring faults as long as he/she follows the wiring standard.

Note:

RJ-11, RJ-14, & RJ-25 are all names used for this physical connector.

• RJ-11 is a 1 pair connector (6p2c- one phone line) 6-position 2-conductors

• RJ14 is a 2 pair connector (6p4c- two phone lines) 6-postion 4
  conductors.

• RJ-25 is a 3 pair connector (6p6c- three phone lines) 6-position
  6-conductors.

Here is a wiring guide for these registered jacks.

Adhering to this wiring standard will keep you from having faults with your wiring. As you can see the tip & ring system has designated voltage polarity for each pin. if you randomly terminate, It is a good likelihood that faults will be created, and it would be difficult to determine the fault without a decent butt-set / P.O.T.S tester.

References:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Registered_jack#Naming_standard

https://allpinouts.org/pinouts/connectors/networking/rj11-telephone/

Solution 2

There are three types of RJ11, which are two-core, four-core and six-core.

If the RJ11 is two-core, the pins can be placed at will, without the order of the lines.

If the RJ11 is four-core, the pair of pins at the two ends need to be distinguished from the pair of pins in the middle, the middle pair is red and green. The pins on both ends are preferably in the same order, but the pins in the middle can be placed at random, without the order of the lines.

Comments

[Dylan]

Its preference, because the information is passed over wires in a symmetrical pattern, unlike RJ45, where the wires that are paired are in order. typically they are not mirrored. But you only need two wires to make a pair, and if your pairs are symmetrical about the interface it doesn't matter which is tip and which is ring.

[ispiro]

@Dylan Thanks. So I guess the official answer would be like RJ45, but people won't be careful about it because it doesn't matter, hence my RJ11 cable.