Telephone

[Mike Watterson]

I worked in a telecom company before encountering Israel, so I sorted a lot of phones for bemused UK <-> Israel travellers.
I heard a Bezeq explanation of why they didn't use RJ11. I forget what it was. I also heard in 1970s an explanation as to why the UK didn't go for RJ11 (I forget what that was, but it wasn't convincing). There is nothing wrong with RJ11. Originally the inner pair on RJ45 were not used for Ethernet, so people used to use CAT5 and RJ45 sockets for phones and ethernet, as the RJ11 fits in the middle. Then patch in the comms room. Modern 1Gbps ethernet does use all four pairs.