Game plan for moving day....

Posts: 1123 · Vonage Forum **MVM** Joined: May 26, 2005 Posts: 1123

Thank you for providing me with my project for the day! Very Happy

Posts: 109 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Jun 21, 2005 Posts: 109

here is an alternative to the switch you might look into. it will switch between pots and Voip automatically and also default to which ever one you plug into line 1 in the event of power outages

switch

Posts: 81 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Jan 02, 2006 Posts: 81

a-dhold wrote:

here is an alternative to the switch you might look into. it will switch between pots and Voip automatically and also default to which ever one you plug into line 1 in the event of power outages

switch

Hmm...interesting device. Although if I was keeping my POTS line, I would just wire it up to the second line in the distribution panel. Since I'm not even activating the POTS line at this house, this device would be useless for me.

The main reason for the switch is not to be able to use both lines at once (after all, running the basement to switch everytime you wanted to use a different line would be a pain) but it serves a method of using the POTS line if the house if ever sold in the future. Of course, to any potential buyer at the time I would recommend Vonage so I can get two months free. But seeing how much were paying for this house...I doubt we'd sell it anytime soon...I'm thinking at least 15 years before we move again.

Posts: 55 · Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2006 6:32 pm Post subject:

the switch IS interesting but has one fallacy: it's powered. In the event of a power failure, it would not provide automatic use of the POTS line.

What about relay, running off the DC power feed to the Voip modem (could have too much amp draw for the adapter)?? Or an AC relay setup plugged into the same power strip/UPS as the Voip modem? The relay would need to "close" when power drops, connecting the POTS line to the home wiring. Another relay could "open" to disconnect the Voip line. Still, I've heard electromechanical relays can be flaky...

Posts: 81 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Jan 02, 2006 Posts: 81

Well, I think the "if power goes out plan" is use the cell phones. Much less work then.

Posts: 81 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Jan 02, 2006 Posts: 81

So things did not go as well as planned. We had settlement on the house on friday and I went to work as soon as we unloaded all the stuff.

My first task was to try to use the existing phone cabling and jacks. Well, I went to disconnect the NID and was the old screw type. Not only that, but the coloring scheme was one I've never seen before or mentioned in any of the documentations on the websites.

So I went back the utility room and tried to tap into the existing line. Turns out they split the line into 3 different lines that go eveywere in the house. Not only that, but there coloring scheme seemed to get worst inside the house. I tried to tap into it, and wasn't succesful. In fact, at this point a phone tech would have to come out and repair the line. But thankfully were not selling the house anytime soon so I don't have to worry about that.

So my next task was to wire the office, which is right above the utlity room. I set up everything in the utility room and started running cables. I soon realized that I mis calculated a floor board (thankfully before drilling) and had to improvise. I should have realized that the office wasn't going to be easy when the existing phone line came from a whole i the floor close to a wall. So I just made that hole bigger and ran my wires through there. Then I had to make another whole in the wall to get the wires behind it...then another hole for the jack. The old owners were kind enough to leave this huge desk in the office, which is not movable, but also blocked me from putting a jack at the normal height of other jacks. So I had to make the jack about 3 feet high. I installed two ethernet lines and one phone jack there.

Fun huh? Well the cable guy shows up and gets the cable up and running. While he's still here I checked the connection and it was working...checked my Vonage phone and it was working. I unpacked a little more and wanted to call my wife who was at our old place. No dial tone. Great, I'm thinking when I put the jack in something got snagged. so I pulled out the jack and checked my handy work...looks nice. I go to the basement to the utility room and check the Vonage adapter....no light on phone one. So I rebooted all the systems...still no light on phone one. I had my work laptop with me, and tried to troubleshoot. Got to the RTP300 page and it said provisioning failed. I was mad. I had to go back to the old place to get my normal so I could troubleshoot better. So I left mad...got back about 20 minutes later and rebooted everything again - worked fine...for about 10 minutes. Then I though maybe the RTP300 was bad, so I plugged in my netgear router. Tried surfing the web and kept getting this comcast page about installing their crappy software. So about and hour and a half with their tech support later, I had everything working like a charm (tech forgot to report that his installation was complete).

Saturday we had the big move...didn't do much cable installing then.

Today I wanted to wire the basement up since my wifes office is going to be there. There is a cable jack already installed in the basement so I decided to just run ethernet and phone to that jack. Well, who ever wired this house in the first place was pretty gutsy. They ran cable lines very close to flourecense lights. Not only that, but I when I opened up the existing jack, I found two more cable wires hiding behind it. I tried to run a fish tape up to see were it comes out..and it got stuck. Did some poking around...and found out that the have 3 electric lines, and three cables lines going into one hole at the top of the wall and distributing along the wall. First of all, thats all kinds of crazy having electric wires next to cable wires. I figured since the two extra cables weren't being used I'd pull those out and put phone and data in. Wasn't easy but I got it done. So now my office and the basement is wired for ethernet, phone, and cable....

Tomorrow I'm going to tackle the living room. I'm sure they'll more suprises there.

So thats the update. I recommend never to but an old home with old wiring.

Posts: 1123 · Vonage Forum **MVM** Joined: May 26, 2005 Posts: 1123

"I recommend never to but an old home with old wiring."

That's not the bottom line. The point of it is, that wifey (and you) probably fell in love with the house, and wanted it badly, so you overcome the obstacles and made it work. Good on ya! Just shows what a man can do with a little ingenuity. Hope you enjoy the new home!

Posts: 81 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Jan 02, 2006 Posts: 81

Well the house is nice. The location is actually quite ideal for us. We have my daughters best friend about 5 houses down from us, and our good friend is moving to the neighborhod next month.

The fun will continue for sure. At least after the living room is wired I can relax a bit till my brother in law comes to wire up the attic to get to the bedrooms.

Posts: 1123 · Vonage Forum **MVM** Joined: May 26, 2005 Posts: 1123

Now you need to get 4 of those Linksys Wireless G cameras and put them up on each roner of the house, this way you can put it in your control center. Very Happy

Posts: 81 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Jan 02, 2006 Posts: 81

Already looked at those actually. I wanted to be able to see who's at the front door without too much a struggle. Wife veto'd the idea though. Maybe in the future though.