What are the differences between a cross cable and an Ethernet cable？

Ethernet cable are classified into crossover cables and straight-through cables according to different networking applications.

A straight-through cable is a common network cable and widely used. A crossover cable is a special Ethernet cable. Therefore, you can compare an Ethernet crossover cable with a straight-through cable (referred to in this document).

What is an Ethernet cable？

Ethernet cables or straight-through cables such as Cat5, Cat5e, and Cat6 are twisted-pair cables used to connect two types of devices on the LAN. For example, in the following cases:

The LAN port from the computer to the cable /DSL modem

Normal port from the computer to the switch/hub

Router's WAN port to cable /DSL modem's LAN port

Router's LAN port to switch/hub's uplink port

Connect two switches/hubs to one using the uplink port and the other using the normal port

In fact, when you think of cross cables and Ethernet cables, you inevitably think of their wiring systems.

It is well known that T568A and T568B are two ANSI, TIA, and EIA recognized Ethernet cable routing standards. The difference between them is the order of the eight cable colors.  For T568A, the color sequence of 8 legs from 1 leg to 8 leg is white, green, white orange, blue, white blue, orange, white brown, brown.

And in T568B wiring standard, compared with T568A, there are two color sequence exchange, 1 foot for 3 feet, 2 feet for 6 feet.

Use the same wiring standards at both ends of the straight-through cable, that is, use T568A wiring standards at both ends (connector A and connector B) or use T568B wiring standards at both ends in the same color.

What is cross cable？

Cat5, Cat5e crossover iso-crossover is a twisted pair cable used to connect two devices of the same type, such as DTE to DTE or DCE to DCE, in the following cases:

One computer to another

Connect one switch to the other switch through normal ports on both sides

One hub to the other connects the common ports on both sides

Router's LAN port to switch/hub's common port

Different from the straight-through cable, the crossover cable uses two wiring standards at both ends (connector A and connector B). One end uses T568A and the other end uses T568B. The following figure is the crossover cable wiring diagram:

conclusion

The similarities between the crossover cable and Ethernet cable are obvious. Both Ethernet cable and crossover cable conform to the T568A and T568B wiring standards, with 8 different colored pins on each side of the connector.

The former connects two different types of devices to each other, such as computers to switches, while the latter connects two devices of the same type to each other, such as one computer to another.

The use of the straight cable, cross cable occasion

Cascade can use common port also can use special MDI - II port (that is, the Uplink port).When two cascade port respectively ordinary port (MDI - X port) and MDI - II port, shall use the straight cable. When two cascade port are ordinary port (MDI - X), you should use the intersection line.