In-house installation in new home

Posts: 4 · New Forum Member Joined: Jan 14, 2007 Posts: 4

I just moved into a brand new home and am attempting to wire all the interior jacks to work off the Vonage adapter. I have read extensively about the Network Interface Unit and what to do with it, but my NIU looks nothing like what I'm reading about. I'm attempting to include a picture of what I'm working with. My home has never had telephone service and all the jacks are dead. When I plug a telephone wire from the wall jack to the Vonage adapter, I have no dial tone on any other jack. If I put a Y connector on the wall jack to which the Vonage adapter is wired to, I can get a dial tone on the phone plugged into the other end of the Y, but perhaps that is just a round about way of plugging the phone directly into the Vonage adapter? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
[img]http://sharkatax.smugmug.com/gallery/2352867[/img]

Posts: 4751 · Vonage Forum **MVM** Joined: Aug 30, 2005 Posts: 4751

What you did with the Y adapter is very good toubleshooting precedure. It shows that the jack you've plugged into is not shorted out or connected to anything that prevents the Vonage adapter from working. Unfortunately, that's just a start.

Your NIU picture doesn't show much. Normally, a phone company installs the NIU, so all you have is a box with nothing much in it. I see a bundle of four (?) cables that seem to come into the box from the bottom and exit through a hole in the back. Is that correct? If you pull on the bundle a bit, is one end free and just tucked out of sight? Is there another junction box inside the house somewhere?

How many jacks do you have in the house? Four perhaps? Open each one and make sure that wires from cables are actually connected to the jack. We'll go on from there.

Posts: 4 · New Forum Member Joined: Jan 14, 2007 Posts: 4

Yes, there are four cables coming into the house with three jacks and one spare cable. I gave the bundle a tug from the outside, but they were fairly secure. I too thought that there might be a junction box inside the house, but I'm unable to locate one.

On the jacks, only the blue and white wires are connected.

Coincidentally (or not?), both Phone 1 and Phone 2 lights are solid green on the Vonage adaptor this morning. I do not have a second line and currently only have the phone cable directly from a telephone plugged into Phone 1 at the back. Nothing is plugged into Phone 2.

Posts: 4751 · Vonage Forum **MVM** Joined: Aug 30, 2005 Posts: 4751

sharkatax wrote:

Yes, there are four cables coming into the house with three jacks and one spare cable. I gave the bundle a tug from the outside, but they were fairly secure. I too thought that there might be a junction box inside the house, but I'm unable to locate one.

Secure at both ends? That's odd. Where do the cables end?? And where does the extra cable go?

Quote:

On the jacks, only the blue and white wires are connected.

Normal. Blue and blue/white are normally used for line 1. If you ever want a second line hooked to those jacks, you'll want to connect the orange and orange/white to those terminals on the jack.

Quote:

Coincidentally (or not?), both Phone 1 and Phone 2 lights are solid green on the Vonage adaptor this morning. I do not have a second line and currently only have the phone cable directly from a telephone plugged into Phone 1 at the back. Nothing is plugged into Phone 2.

If you have the Motorola VT2442 (and maybe the VT2142 as well) that doesn't mean anything. There's a firmware bug that intermittently turns on the phone 2 light. Ignore it.

Your wiring sounds normal, except for that lack of a loose end. My guess is that you have one cable from each jack. They come into your NIU. If they ended there, I wouldn't have any doubts. I'd tell you to strip back the insulation on the outer (blue) cover, being careful not to nick the wires inside. Then I'd say to strip back the insulation on each blue wire from the four cables (five if you can't identify which is the spare) and connect all the blue wires together. Insulate the connection, then do the same with the four blue/white wires. That should have you going. The fact that those cables don't end at the NIU has me bothered.

Posts: 4 · New Forum Member Joined: Jan 14, 2007 Posts: 4

As it turns out, the wires I tugged on, which were secure, were the wires going into the house. Tonight I tugged on the other end of the wires and they were just dangling - they are not serviced. So now my question is, how do I connect them together so that the jacks will be live?

Posts: 4751 · Vonage Forum **MVM** Joined: Aug 30, 2005 Posts: 4751

Look at my previous answer. Start with ...I wouldn't have any doubts, and go on from there. I'd recommend that you go by Home Depot, Lowes, or someplace like that and get some good crimp connectors to make good, well insulated connections between the wires. You might want to start, though, by just twisting them together (making sure that the different colored bundles don't touch) and try it out before making the final connection.

Posts: 4 · New Forum Member Joined: Jan 14, 2007 Posts: 4

Thanks Steve. Your suggestion worked perfectly and now so do my jacks.

-Joel

Posts: 4751 · Vonage Forum **MVM** Joined: Aug 30, 2005 Posts: 4751

That's great. Thanks for the feedback.