Crossover cable

A crossover cable connects two devices of the same type, for example DTE-DTE or DCE-DCE, usually connected asymmetrically (DTE-DCE), by a modified cable called a crosslink.

The crossing of wires in a cable or in a connector adaptor allows: In contrast, a straight-through cable uses direct wiring to connect complementary devices, e.g. a PC to a switch.

In a crossover cable, pins do not correspond – some or all of the conductors are swapped at the terminations.

Using different wiring at each end yields a crossover cable (a given color wire connects to one number pin at one end, and a different number pin at the other).

Some connection standards use different balanced pairs to transmit data, so crossover cables for them have different configurations to swap the transmit and receive pairs:

A null modem cable.
An Ethernet crossover cable