Couldn’t our ancestors just create an rj11 (phone) port instead of a weird adapter for phone cables?
And can they be repurposed for ethernet (rj45)?
Because you can stack those ontop of each other.
And mostly not since they are cat3 cables or VVT (SVV) cable and they are not suitable for Ethernet. You’d get max 10Mbps out of them if you got it to work.
Not seen one of those since the 00’s 🤣
RJs are flaky, gets eventually loose.Â
This thing is matching Belgium homes, brick like build to lasts.
Even electrical power cables are used for internet.Â
They will disappear with the copper phase-out project of proximus
Local telecom companies (RTT/Belgacom – now Proximus) set their own national standards (like the 5-pin) before the RJ11 (an American standard) was common globally. It was cheaper to use adapters than rewire every house.
​Now some things seem like a no-brainer, but at the time, those national plugs were robust and designed for technicians, not easy consumer plug-and-play. The RJ11 was a huge simplification later on.
​Old phone lines only have 2 or 4 thin wires and aren’t twisted properly. Ethernet needs 8 higher-quality, twisted wires, so you’ll can’t repurpose it.
Isn’t this to filter out phone frequencies vs internet frequencies?
I’m no expert though
Because France and other northern countries already had their own telephone network standard before the RJ11 was standardised, and above all because the ‘T-plug’ already existed well before the RJ11 -> 1950!
Whereas the ‘RJ11’ was only standardised in the USA from 1976 onwards!
This is why most homes built before 2003 have this type of socket, and it is mandatory to have this adapter to use RJ11 and therefore the internet!
It’s just history. No one is installing these sockets anymore. The last time these plugs were useful was when ISDN still ruled, and people had more than one fixed phone in their house. It hasn’t been relevant for at least 20 years.
you can stack them at the other side are 5 holes that also connect so one for phone one for modem one for fax, it was easy.
Looks like someone has visited a museum!
These days RJ-45 is – or should be – far more common.
Only in existing houses that are (idk) 20+ years old.
Das een varkens neus
So these plugs are/were the standard plug for copper-based phone landlines here. Others have already pointed out this is a historical thing from when each country had their own standard.
Now if you still have DSL as your internet uplink, there’s a good chance you also still have wall sockets for this plug type in the house. DSL goes over basically a phone landline with the bandwidth cranked up. To prevent phones from using up all that bandwidth you need to use a splitter. Without one,, phone calls could cause interference on the DSL data signal (and losing your internet connection when someone made a call, well that’s from the old dialup days)
Typically, you would plug the splitter into the wall, then stack the regular phone plug onto that splitter. (so not in the RJ11 port you see here, that’s for your DSL modem, but on the back of that plug). This separates the data signal from the telephony signal. You need to use a splitter for every landline phone in the house. Fortunately those are pretty cheap.
The Dutch and Belgian ones are slightly different from each other. Just national phone networks creating their own plugs- there wasn’t a need for an international standard when state-owned companies ran the show.
Fixed phones were something that were mostly phasing out in 2010
It’s because that’s why.
Raise the same question about BT connector in any UK group 🙂
This is from the era when 900 was the main emergency number. Even their vehicles were called a “900”.
This used to be the default plug for landline phones here. Operator Telenet has never used these.
However, operator proximus (which is the oldest existing one) has hold onto this type of plug for god-know-what unholy reason for the longest time. They have transitioned away from these nowadays, but a lot of houses are still equipped with sockets for these things.
Since most modern families no longer have landline phones, these should disappear. I haven’t seen these ever since we transitioned away from Proximus in the early 2000s.
Because back when phones were invented every country just did their own thing
The Dutch version was a little different. The top pins are wider a part and they don’t have the 5th plastic pin.
You won’t be seeing them a lot anymore. Since KPN is dismantling their copper network and replacing it with fiber. New houses didn’t have this connector since early 2000’s.
23 comments
Couldn’t our ancestors just create an rj11 (phone) port instead of a weird adapter for phone cables?
And can they be repurposed for ethernet (rj45)?
Because you can stack those ontop of each other.
And mostly not since they are cat3 cables or VVT (SVV) cable and they are not suitable for Ethernet. You’d get max 10Mbps out of them if you got it to work.
Not seen one of those since the 00’s 🤣
RJs are flaky, gets eventually loose.Â
This thing is matching Belgium homes, brick like build to lasts.
Even electrical power cables are used for internet.Â
They will disappear with the copper phase-out project of proximus
Local telecom companies (RTT/Belgacom – now Proximus) set their own national standards (like the 5-pin) before the RJ11 (an American standard) was common globally. It was cheaper to use adapters than rewire every house.
​Now some things seem like a no-brainer, but at the time, those national plugs were robust and designed for technicians, not easy consumer plug-and-play. The RJ11 was a huge simplification later on.
​Old phone lines only have 2 or 4 thin wires and aren’t twisted properly. Ethernet needs 8 higher-quality, twisted wires, so you’ll can’t repurpose it.
Isn’t this to filter out phone frequencies vs internet frequencies?
I’m no expert though
Because France and other northern countries already had their own telephone network standard before the RJ11 was standardised, and above all because the ‘T-plug’ already existed well before the RJ11 -> 1950!
Whereas the ‘RJ11’ was only standardised in the USA from 1976 onwards!
This is why most homes built before 2003 have this type of socket, and it is mandatory to have this adapter to use RJ11 and therefore the internet!
It’s just history. No one is installing these sockets anymore. The last time these plugs were useful was when ISDN still ruled, and people had more than one fixed phone in their house. It hasn’t been relevant for at least 20 years.
you can stack them at the other side are 5 holes that also connect so one for phone one for modem one for fax, it was easy.
Looks like someone has visited a museum!
These days RJ-45 is – or should be – far more common.
Only in existing houses that are (idk) 20+ years old.
Das een varkens neus
So these plugs are/were the standard plug for copper-based phone landlines here. Others have already pointed out this is a historical thing from when each country had their own standard.
Now if you still have DSL as your internet uplink, there’s a good chance you also still have wall sockets for this plug type in the house. DSL goes over basically a phone landline with the bandwidth cranked up. To prevent phones from using up all that bandwidth you need to use a splitter. Without one,, phone calls could cause interference on the DSL data signal (and losing your internet connection when someone made a call, well that’s from the old dialup days)
Typically, you would plug the splitter into the wall, then stack the regular phone plug onto that splitter. (so not in the RJ11 port you see here, that’s for your DSL modem, but on the back of that plug). This separates the data signal from the telephony signal. You need to use a splitter for every landline phone in the house. Fortunately those are pretty cheap.
The Dutch and Belgian ones are slightly different from each other. Just national phone networks creating their own plugs- there wasn’t a need for an international standard when state-owned companies ran the show.
Fixed phones were something that were mostly phasing out in 2010
It’s because that’s why.
Raise the same question about BT connector in any UK group 🙂
This is from the era when 900 was the main emergency number. Even their vehicles were called a “900”.
This used to be the default plug for landline phones here. Operator Telenet has never used these.
However, operator proximus (which is the oldest existing one) has hold onto this type of plug for god-know-what unholy reason for the longest time. They have transitioned away from these nowadays, but a lot of houses are still equipped with sockets for these things.
Since most modern families no longer have landline phones, these should disappear. I haven’t seen these ever since we transitioned away from Proximus in the early 2000s.
Because back when phones were invented every country just did their own thing
The Dutch version was a little different. The top pins are wider a part and they don’t have the 5th plastic pin.
You won’t be seeing them a lot anymore. Since KPN is dismantling their copper network and replacing it with fiber. New houses didn’t have this connector since early 2000’s.
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