A data point is one end of a cable. Almost every misunderstanding about them comes from expecting the socket on the wall to be something more interesting than that.
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A data point is a socket in a wall plate with a length of twisted pair cable behind it, running back to somewhere else in the building. That is the whole definition. It does not produce internet, it does not connect to anything on its own, and it is not doing anything clever inside the wall.
What it gives you is entirely decided by the far end. A data point wired back to a cupboard where the cable has been coiled up and left is a socket connected to a piece of copper connected to nothing. It will look identical to a working one from the outside, and plenty of houses have both kinds.
The thing on the wall has three separate parts and it is worth knowing their names, because tradespeople use them and they sound interchangeable when they are not. The plate is the visible cover. It is cosmetic, it clips off, and swapping it changes nothing electrical. Behind it is the mounting block, sometimes called a mech or a grid, which is the frame the socket clips into. And inside that is the module, which is the socket itself and the only part that matters technically, because that is where the eight conductors are punched down and where the wiring standard lives.
So "can you change my wall plate" and "can you change my data point" are different jobs. The first is a two minute cosmetic swap. The second means opening up a termination.
This is the reference card most people go looking for the first time they take a plate off the wall.
Scroll to see the full card →
What it means: the two standards are the same standard with two pairs swapped. Nobody can tell them apart by testing performance, and there is no better one. The failure mode is mixing them, because a run terminated to A at one end and B at the other becomes a crossover cable, which modern equipment often quietly works around and older equipment does not. The other line worth taking away is the right hand column: 100 megabit Ethernet only uses pins 1, 2, 3 and 6, so a fault on the blue or brown pair is completely invisible until something asks for gigabit.
Most Australian houses built or renovated in the last forty years have a mix of these, often in the same room, and often with no labels on any of them.
| What you can see | What it is | What it does now |
|---|---|---|
| Wide socket, eight contacts | RJ45 data outlet | Ethernet. It will also accept a phone plug, which is why they get confused |
| Narrower socket, four or six contacts | RJ11 or RJ12 phone outlet | Usually nothing now, unless it has been re-fed from the router |
| Three round pins, cream plastic | 600 series phone socket | Superseded in the 1970s. Almost certainly dead |
| Screw-on or push-on round connector | Coaxial television outlet | Antenna, or occasionally an HFC internet connection |
| Blank plate, no socket | Anything or nothing | Sometimes a capped cable waiting to be terminated. Worth opening before assuming |
The pair that causes the most confusion is the first two. A data socket is wider than a phone socket, and because it is wider, a phone plug drops into it perfectly happily. Half the population has plugged a phone into a data outlet at some point and concluded the outlet was broken. The reverse is impossible: a data plug is too wide to enter a phone socket, which is a useful way of telling them apart with nothing but the plug in your hand.
The narrow phone sockets deserve a note of their own, because most of them stopped working years ago and nobody told the owner. When the nbn arrived, the copper telephone network behind those sockets was disconnected, so a phone plugged into the wall gets nothing. That is not a fault and there is nothing to repair, though the existing wiring can usually be re-fed from the router's phone port. That story is on our phone line page.
Blank plates are worth a look rather than an assumption. Sometimes there is a capped cable behind one, run during construction and never terminated because the budget ran out at the end of the job. That is the cheapest data point anyone will ever install, because the expensive part, getting cable through a finished wall, has already been paid for.
Only one of these is a fault. The other three are things that were never finished.
The far end was never terminated
The cable was pulled during construction, the plate went on the wall, and the other end was left coiled in a roof space or a cupboard because the network gear had not been decided yet.
Extremely common in houses where the cabling was done by the builder rather than by whoever set up the network. It is also the easiest thing on this list to fix.
The far end is terminated, and plugged into nothing
There is a patch panel or a row of sockets in a cupboard, all beautifully labelled, and no patch lead running from it to the router. The point is live, correct and connected to a dead end.
This is the single most common reason a data point does not work, and it takes about ten seconds to fix once somebody looks.
The two ends were wired to different standards
One end punched down to T568A, the other to T568B. That is a crossover cable, whether or not anyone meant to make one, and it will behave inconsistently across different equipment.
It is a five minute repunch at one end once identified, and it is invisible until somebody opens the module and looks at the colour order.
A pair is damaged, so it runs at 100
The only genuine fault of the four. A conductor nicked during installation, a staple through the cable, or a pair not seated properly in the punch-down.
Because fast Ethernet uses two pairs and gigabit uses four, the link simply drops to 100 Mbps and keeps working. Everything appears fine, just slower, which is why it can go unnoticed for years.
The usual instinct is one point per room, evenly spread, which sounds sensible and is not how anybody actually uses a house. Devices cluster. A study has a desk with three or four things on it and the rest of the room has none. A living room has a television wall with a TV, a console and a media box within a metre of each other.
So doubles beat singles almost everywhere it matters, and two points at the right wall beats one point on each of four walls. It costs very little more, because the labour is in getting the cable to the location rather than in the socket on the end of it. Running a second cable alongside the first while the wall is open is close to free compared with coming back later.
The other placement worth planning is the one nobody thinks of: a point in the ceiling or high on a wall for a wireless access point. Wi-Fi coverage in a brick or rendered Australian house is not a router problem, it is a placement problem, and an access point in a hallway ceiling fed by its own cable does more than any amount of upgrading the box in the study. That is covered properly on our data cabling page, along with cable choice and how far a run can go.
And every point wants a label at both ends. It is the cheapest thing in the whole job and the first thing to get skipped, and its absence is why an otherwise excellent installation becomes a treasure hunt for the next person.
This is the part almost every article on the subject gets wrong, including the version of this page it replaced, which said data points should only ever be installed by a licensed electrician. That is not the rule. Cabling that connects to the telecommunications network is regulated separately by the ACMA under the Cabling Provider Rules and has to be carried out by a registered cabler. An electrical licence does not include it, and the two qualifications are not interchangeable.
Plenty of licensed electricians hold cabler registration as well, and plenty do not. The useful thing is that it is a fair and easy question to ask: request a cabler registration number the same way you would ask for a licence number, and treat anyone who finds the question strange as an answer in itself. The registration types and what each one covers are set out on our data cabling page.
Where a job also involves electrical work, an outlet for a switch or a circuit for a cabinet, that side is certified as electrical work. We lodge a Certificate of Compliance for Electrical Work within 7 days of the compliance test, which since 1 July 2026 goes through the BCNSW eCert portal.
One end of a cable, and nothing more mystical than that. A data point is a socket in a wall plate with a length of twisted pair cable behind it, running back to somewhere else in the building. It does not generate internet and it does not connect to anything by itself. Whatever the far end of that cable is plugged into is what the point gives you, so a data point wired back to a cupboard where nothing is plugged in delivers exactly nothing.
No, though they are close cousins and one will physically accept the other. A data outlet is an eight pin socket, usually called RJ45, wired to all four pairs. A phone outlet is a narrower four or six pin socket, RJ11 or RJ12, using one or two pairs. A phone plug fits happily into a data socket because it is narrower, which is why people do it by accident. A data plug will not go into a phone socket. Since the copper telephone network was switched off, most old phone points are also dead, which is covered on our phone line page.
Four reasons, in the order we find them. The far end was never terminated, so the cable runs to a roof space and stops. The far end is terminated but nothing is plugged into it, which is by far the most common. The two ends were wired to different standards, making the run behave as a crossover. Or a pair was damaged during construction. Only the last one is a fault, and the first two are not faults at all, which is why the first thing worth doing is finding out where the cable actually goes.
Not for performance. The only difference between them is that the orange and green pairs swap places on pins 1, 2, 3 and 6, and every other pin is identical. Both support gigabit and both test the same. What matters enormously is consistency: both ends of the same run have to be terminated to the same standard, or you have accidentally made a crossover cable. T568B is the usual choice in Australia, so unless there is a reason to do otherwise, matching what is already in the building is the right call.
Very often because one pair in the run is damaged or badly terminated. Fast Ethernet at 100 Mbps uses only two of the four pairs, on pins 1, 2, 3 and 6. Gigabit uses all four. So a break in the blue or brown pair is completely invisible until the day you plug in equipment that wants gigabit, at which point the link quietly negotiates down to 100 and everything still works, just slower. It is one of the most common faults in cabling that was never tested after installation.
A registered cabler. This is the part almost every article on the subject gets wrong, including the version of this page it replaced. Cabling that connects to the telecommunications network is regulated by the ACMA under the Cabling Provider Rules, and an electrical licence does not cover it. They are separate qualifications and holding one does not grant the other. Ask for a cabler registration number the same way you would ask for a licence number.
Attending your job is a chargeable callout. We confirm what it costs when you book, and the price for the work itself is agreed before we start, so there are no surprises on the invoice.
The other set of three words everybody uses and nobody defines, explained for Australian homes.
What the round coaxial outlet on your wall still does, and what happens when there is not one.
Three different faults get called a short circuit, and each one is caught by a different device.
For the wider system: cable choice, run lengths, access points and testing are on our data cabling page, dead phone sockets are phone line repair, and cabled cameras on the same runs are CCTV installation. See every post on the blog.
Upfront pricing, with the price agreed before we start. We find out where the cable actually goes before quoting to replace anything.
