Stand alone Tivo and Vonage

Posts: 4 · New Forum Member Joined: May 15, 2006 Posts: 4

Hello all,

I have been considering Vonage for sometime now, but never made the change because I seldomly use long distance. I now have a need to make cross country calls quite a bit, so I would like to switch to Vonage. One concern is that my Tivo can only update via a telephone call (does not have USB or ethernet). I do not know that I want to go to the hassle of hardwiring the house as I will likely be moving within a year.

So, my two questions are, 1) how long and how hard is it to hardwire the system 2) if I don't want to hardwire the stystem, is there a way for my tivo to make calls to update the scheduling.

I greatly appreciate any input I can get.

Jake

Posts: 4777 · Vonage Forum **MVM** Joined: Aug 30, 2005 Posts: 4777

Generally speaking, if you currently have house wiring with jacks in the places where you need them, using it with Vonage is a snap. You just have to make very sure that you've disconnect the system from the old land lines. With modern house wiring, this is often as simple as pulling one plug. Then you plug your Vonage adapter into one jack and the rest of your phones and such into other plugs.

Posts: 4 · New Forum Member Joined: May 15, 2006 Posts: 4

Thanks for the response. Today I went ahead and signed up for Vonage. I looked in my basement where my phonelines come in and there is a twisted pair that runs through a block where all of my house phone lines are, if I replace that with a line run from my phone adapter coming from Vonage would that run the whole house?

Jake

Posts: 4777 · Vonage Forum **MVM** Joined: Aug 30, 2005 Posts: 4777

Does that twisted pair connect the wires coming from outside to the wires running through the house? If so, you just disconnect it from the wires coming into the house, so that the outside wires no longer connect to the house wiring.

At that point, all you have to do is plug the Vonage adapter into a wall jack and all should be ready to go. If you wish, youi could run wires from the Vonage adapter down to the connection block to take the place of that pair, but it isn't necessary.

Posts: 4 · New Forum Member Joined: May 15, 2006 Posts: 4

Sounds great, I should get my adapter tomorrow. I am looking forward to using it.

Jake

Posts: 76 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Oct 17, 2005 Posts: 76

Alternatively, you could get an Ethernet card for your Tivo from 9th Tee.

Posts: 274 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Feb 09, 2006 Posts: 274

Indeed.

Posts: 4 · New Forum Member Joined: May 15, 2006 Posts: 4

bassplayer and UMP25,

It is funny you say that because I looked into that last evening, I am probably going to get a bigger HD and an ethernet card. Looks like I will be having all sorts of new toys!

Jake

Posts: 274 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Feb 09, 2006 Posts: 274

While you're at it, modify the new HD so your TIVO never has to call out again. Plus, you'll be getting tons of cool new features.

Posts: 8 · New Forum Member Joined: Dec 05, 2005 Posts: 8

I have the Vonage VTech IP8100-2 and everthng is working fine.

My series 1 Tivo needs to call out for updates but the Vonage VTech IP8100-2 does not have the connection in the back to hook up with my old phone line. Is there an addapter for this (if so what is it, or do I have to purchase more equipment from Vonage? If I do have to get more equipment from Vonage which unit should I purchase.

Thanks for any help.