[dfox]

Originally it was more or less one for POTS, one Rx, one Tx and one spare (used for power in ISDN S/T interface, which otherwise shares the same pinout).

Then came 1000-base-T, where the “base” is kind of misnomer and it is actually related to SHDSL. Each pair is essentially a separate full-duplex 250Mbps link with active echo cancellation and four of them is combined to create one 1Gbps link.