Help with phone sockets

[Araucaria]

One of our phone sockets has stopped working, and I am baffled.

The phone sockets were installed two years ago by a qualified electrician. I now rather think he wasn't qualified to install telephone lines. The phone sockets are the new-type ones, and here is the first place where I would like some help. I think the sockets (are these correctly called jacks?) should be for an RJ11 connector, which I see from wikipedia has 6 positions but only two contacts.

What the electrician has installed for these new standard telephone connectors is a socket with eight positions, though only numbers 4 and 5 appear to be connected to the phone lines where they come from the DTI unit some way away in the building. Would this maybe be an RJ45 socket? Which I think is what is used for wired networks rather than phones?

Here's a picture, though I don't know how much help it is:

[URL=http://s585.photobucket.com/albums/ss293/Vanman15/?action=view&current=tubes005.jpg][IMG]http://i585.photobucket.com/albums/ss293/Vanman15/th_tubes005.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

What made me think it might not be the right socket is that the wire connectors on the socket are colour coded, but not to quite the same colours as there are in the telephone cables. Six of them are about right, but number 1 is coded black and has a light grey wire in it, while number 7 is coded purple and has a dark grey wire in it.

If it turns out that the electrician put in the wrong sockets, do I have a problem, or should these sockets work fine with modern telephone connectors?

[Martin963]

There are others more qualified here to help (pachapapa springs to mind) but I think the RJ45 is a whole size "chunkier" than the RJ11.   The latter is the sort you find on the end of a modern telephone lead,  ie the end that plugs into the telephone itself,  and is quite small.   The RJ45 is the size for ethernet cables.  I think!

I don't think you can read much if anything into the colours though.  As long as the electrician was consistent it doesn't matter what colours were used.   cf many a French house where green/yellow cables turn out to be live!

I think it's more likely that a connection has come loose - if it worked fine for a while then it's more likely to be that I would have thought.

But please wait for someone more qualified to say what they think!

[pachapapa]

Rather fancy there are more than a few who would disagree.[:)]

Arguments over RJ45 sockets have been frequent.

The following is typical.

http://www.completefrance.com/cs/forums/2378774/ShowPost.aspx

But if you put RJ45 in the forum search option, there are plenty more.[;-)]

[Araucaria]

Thanks PPP, rather a lot of information back there with that link but I think I understand enough of it to know that the sockets are the right ones according to the new norms, and as far as I can see they have been cabled properly.

I will have a careful look at plugs (RJ11) and sockets (RJ45) to see if there's any obvious signs of physical damage.

If it's not that then I will still be baffled!

[pachapapa]

Although a RJ11 plug will go in to an RJ45 socket; the position of the telephone wires on the four contacts on the RJ11 will not correspond with the position of the two contacts on the eight contact RJ45 socket.

The connection of anything to a RJ45 socket should correctly be done with an RJ45 plug, even though for a telephone and indeed a modem-router only two contacts are involved.

[Quillan]

To connect an RJ11 phone plug to an RJ45 socket you simply buy a converter. They are about five Euros in France of just over a pound in the UK. You should not try and 'force' a RJ11 plug in to an RJ45 socket.

[Araucaria]

I will look for a converter - any suggestions for an easy source in France?

I note that the box which my new Livebox 2 arrived in says that the "characteristiques techniques" of the Livebox include:

# Internet: 1 port RJ11 pour la ligne ADSL

# Telephonie: 1 port RJ45 (compatible RJ11)

which seems to suggest that Orange think you'll be putting an RJ11 plug into their RJ45 socket.

[pachapapa]

[quote user="Araucaria"]I will look for a converter - any suggestions for an easy source in France?

I note that the box which my new Livebox 2 arrived in says that the "characteristiques techniques" of the Livebox include:

# Internet: 1 port RJ11 pour la ligne ADSL
# Telephonie: 1 port RJ45 (compatible RJ11)

which seems to suggest that Orange think you'll be putting an RJ11 plug into their RJ45 socket.
[/quote]

Arguments yet again!! Oh Dear.[:D]

Internet

1 port RJ-11 pour la ligne ADSL

Réseau local (LAN)

4 ports Ethernet

Téléphonie

1 port RJ-45 (compatible RJ-11)

The LAN Ports are also dimensionally RJ45s and dimensionally look like the "1 port RJ45(compatible RJ11) lurking close by.....BUT THE FOUR CENTRAL CONNECTIONS CORRESPOND TO THE CORRECT LOCATION FOR THE TWO WIRES ON THE TELEPHONE RJ11.....so the RJ11 which is dimensionally, in depth, the same as an RJ45 BUT not so wide as it only has 4 possible connections ,whereas the RJ45 has 8; therefore it is twice as wide. This felicitous juxtapositrion of contacts ingeniously concocted by Orange seems to have led Orange subscribers to believe that they can wham a telephone RJ11 in an NF 15-100 domestic info/media RJ45 in the side of a wall and not on the side of an orange box.

Hopefully someone will persist in this folly and suceed in connecting FT 48 volts to a delicate apparatus with a modest 5 volts and take out the motherboard.[:)][:)][:D]

[Araucaria]

[quote user="pachapapa"][quote user="Araucaria"]I will look for a converter - any suggestions for an easy source in France?

[/quote]

Arguments yet again!! Oh Dear.[:D]

Internet

1 port RJ-11 pour la ligne ADSL

Réseau local (LAN)

4 ports Ethernet

Téléphonie

1 port RJ-45 (compatible RJ-11)

The LAN Ports are also dimensionally RJ45s and dimensionally look like the "1 port RJ45(compatible RJ11) lurking close by.....BUT THE FOUR CENTRAL CONNECTIONS CORRESPOND TO THE CORRECT LOCATION FOR THE TWO WIRES ON THE TELEPHONE RJ11.....so the RJ11 which is dimensionally, in depth, the same as an RJ45 BUT not so wide as it only has 4 possible connections ,whereas the RJ45 has 8; therefore it is twice as wide. This felicitous juxtapositrion of contacts ingeniously concocted by Orange seems to have led Orange subscribers to believe that they can wham a telephone RJ11 in an NF 15-100 domestic info/media RJ45 in the side of a wall and not on the side of an orange box.

Hopefully someone will persist in this folly and suceed in connecting FT 48 volts to a delicate apparatus with a modest 5 volts and take out the motherboard.[:)][:)][:D]

[/quote]

No argument from me. I would like to get a converter: any suggestions for an easy source in France?

[pachapapa]

PPP would be more likely to buy a 3 metre length of cable with a Male RJ11 at one end and an RJ45 at the other end.

[IMG]http://www.order.conrad.com/M/0000_0999/0800/0830/0830/083074_BB_00_FB.EPS.jpg[/IMG]

http://www.conrad.fr/cordon_rj11_rj45_ivoire_3_metres_a_55343_55754_844719_714659

[Araucaria]

Thanks PPP, what a good idea. I really hadn't thought of that (how stupid can you get?). Worse, I may already have one like that in the box of cables and bits and pieces up in the attic.

[pachapapa]

€ 4.90  in Leclerc MediaCenter Parthenay.