How to Properly Disconnect Existing Wiring.

Posts: 15 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Feb 28, 2004 Posts: 15

Can anyone assist me with the disconnection, I just got my modem and I will like to connect it so I can use the phone in the whole house. What am I looking to disconnect, I want to make sure that the right item is being disconnected.

Posts: 18 · Posted: Mon Mar 15, 2004 5:27 pm Post subject:

Due search of the forum for "home wiring" There are quite a few threads on this topic including pictures .

Posts: 110 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Mar 06, 2004 Posts: 110

http://michigantelephone.mi.org/distribute.html

Posts: 38 · Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2004 12:16 pm Post subject:

Quote:

http://michigantelephone.mi.org/distribute.html

That's a great site!

Note to mods - this site contains a lot of good info, and might make for a good "sticky" to answer the "How do I connect to my existing wiring" FAQ.

Posts: 5 · New Forum Member Joined: Mar 11, 2004 Posts: 5

How could you do this if you have DSL?

Posts: 1 · New Forum Member Joined: Mar 23, 2004 Posts: 1

I recently got my service switched over to Vonage. I would love to activate all my outlets so I can use the phones I already have, but I can't disconnect the outside wiring. I live in a townhouse and the wires for the four contiguous units in my building come out of an underground cable box, are taped together, and go directly into the wall of the building. There isn't enough exposed cable for me to get to, even if I could figure out which one was mine. Obviously, I don't care to incur the wrath of my neighbors by disconnecting everyone's phone service!
Does anyone have a solution for a situation like mine, short of buying a cordless phone with multiple handsets?
Thanks!

Posts: 110 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Mar 06, 2004 Posts: 110

Yogini...

I guess my first question is, do you rent or own? I don't think, unless you own the condo / townhouse, that you're going to have enough leverage with the property management to get access to the proper interface (I dunno if it's still called a demarc or a NID, or what).

Another possibility, rather than going through the property management, would be to call your old phone company (do you still have an account with them? It would be helpful if you did), and then hope that you get a helpful technician who is willing to do this for you!

Posts: 18 · Posted: Mon Mar 29, 2004 1:48 pm Post subject:

Yogini wrote:

Obviously, I don't care to incur the wrath of my neighbors by disconnecting everyone's phone service!
Does anyone have a solution for a situation like mine, short of buying a cordless phone with multiple handsets?
Thanks!

You need to find were the wires come into your house. It will be in a room with an outside wall (most likely). Open the phone jack. This jack should have two sets of wires. The ones from the outside line and another set that connects that jack to the other jacks. Unhook the outside wires and individually tape them. Leave the inside wiring alone. You are now all set.

BTW cordless phones with multi sets from AT&T work well.

Posts: 5 · New Forum Member Joined: Nov 26, 2004 Posts: 5

My situation first.
I live in a condo and the NIU might possibly be out of my reach.
I was wondering,

according to the http://michigantelephone.mi.org/distribute.html site

In newer homes Cat 5 wire is almost always used for communications wiring — if not it will probably be at least Cat 3, which uses the same color coding ("Cat" is short for "category", by the way). Cat 5 wire generally has four pairs, while Cat 3 may have a different number of pairs, generally anywhere from three to six.

The primary pair, or "Line 1", is usually the blue and white (with blue stripe) pair. If there is a "Line 2", it is usually placed on the orange and white (with orange stripe) pair. Line three is on the green pair, and line four on the brown pair

Could I just wire VOIP to L2 without disconnecting my telephone company?

Thanks

Posts: 110 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Mar 06, 2004 Posts: 110

Probably not.

Your idea is sound in concept. You could test that pair for voltage and could be reasonably certain that the telco line wasn't connected to either strand. However, that's no assurance that some idiot doesn't hook it up later. And since you have no control over that, you would be taking a risk on putting some low voltage back up your ATA's rear end and frying the poor sucker.

Of course, more importantly, you have forgotten the most important aspect of the wiring question...

Even if you put a dial tone back down the orange and white pair, where's it going to go? Sure... you could rewire the other jacks in your house to use that pair too, but where do they go? My point is that all these orange and white pairs aren't going to be all tied in at the interface box, are they? And so all of this work will get you nowhere unless you can get to that box, which was your whole problem in the first place.