-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: [CentOS] 2 Ethernet cabling question From: Raymond Lillard <ryl at sonic.net> To: CentOS mailing list <centos at centos.org> Date: Wednesday, December 29, 2010 12:36:43 AM > On 12/28/2010 08:01 PM, Drew wrote: >>> The colors do not matter. What matters is the pairs. >> And every person who comes after you will curse your work because >> *both* the colors *and* the pairs are part of the 568A/B standard. >> >> In my shop if you tried that you'd be very quickly looking for work >> elsewhere. ;-) > Electrically it matters also. If you want to be able to > have the cable usable to the full distance specified by the > standard, colors matter. The reason is placement in the > bundle and crosstalk between the pairs. > I concur. What some people gloss over is that not all the pairs are the same. Take an ethernet cable apart at some length greater than a few inches and you will immediately see that some pairs can have twice as many twists as another. This results in slightly different electrical and delay properties for each pair - that become exaggerated at distance. Bottom line, stick with the color scheme.