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Network Plugs

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Vlad

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I just read an interesting little blurb on the internet and apparently RJ45 has been obsolete for quite a long time and was only used in Telephony applications. The Ethernet plug is an 8P8C modular plug. Back when true RJ45 was in use and 8P8C started being used, people just recognized the shape and hole as smiler to RJ45 and just called it that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8P8C
 
Well, "8P8C" is almost as hard to say as "PCMCIA". Guess we all will stick with the incorrect but easier rj45.
 
Yeah, thats probably how it lasted so long. Interesting bit of trivia but I don't think the RJ45 term is going anywhere.
 
That page was not particularly pedagogic, as it doesn't contain a single picture of a "true" RJ45, only described in text. The page for registered jacks has a picture of a few contacts, but neither is a "true" RJ45, again only mentioned in text.

If they are so obsolete that they barely don't exist in practise anymore, I don't see a problem with giving up the old meaning and give it to the current connector with its popular name. But then again, I don't work with nomenclature.
 
Which is why everyone probably stuck with RJ45, just to avoid this mess. I just found it interesting. I don't think anyone really calls it 8P8C. Looking back at it now it kinda seems unnecessarily specific to go that far in naming cable's plug end.
 
Yeah, it is kinda amusing to see textbooks saying RJ45 but at this point it might as well be called RJ45 since no one else will probably know what 8P8C means.
 
Well, being most manufactureres of networking equipment have also adopted RJ45 as the correct term, I guess that is all we can do.

It would be interesting to go into a store though, and ask for an 8P8C connector. They will stare you in the eye and think your crazy. (As I would have done, before I saw this thread).
 
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