V-Portal Multiple phone lines + fax set up

Posts: 1 · New Forum Member Joined: Mar 10, 2008 Posts: 1

i have an hp office jet 5510 fax machine as well as a multi line intercom desk phone and was having all sorts of problems getting it all to run through my v-portal.... I have 2 lines set up with vonage, line one is dedicated to my voice phones and line 2 is dedicated to my fax machine, and everytime i would plug my fax into port 2 on my v-portal my voice phone lines would immediately go dead or be 'off the hook'. After hours of turmoil, here is what eventually worked for me.

I have both lines from the v-portal running into my multi line phone. from there i am using one of the line out extensions from the back of my multi line phone to run to the fax machine...voala!! no more fax problems!!

Hope this helps someone out there because hours of pointless conversation with vonage support would have had me calling at&t to set up a stand alone dsl router specifically for my fax transmitions...what a load

Posts: 111 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Jan 26, 2008 Posts: 111

Thanks for sharing that with us, Luke. Very Happy

I'm curiious though as to what complicated things for you. How were you feeding the phone's Line 2 in the first hookup? It would be interesting to know if this was some quirk of the VoIP device or the machine.

Here's my setup so we can compare notes:
Vonage D-Link VTA phone-only device with L2 as fax line.
Phone is RCA 25414 4-line.
Fax is Canon AIO MP780

Someone in tech support (RCA) told me that the data port on the back is to help people out who have no place to plug in a fax or credit card reader but wasn't necessary if one had splitters or jacks or what have you.

In my case I have a phone that requires that I combine two lines into one feed, so come out of the Vonage adapter into one of those line splitters to line one, then out of line 2 on the Vonage into a splitter, then from the splitter to the fax machine and the line splitter, then to a coupling on the back of the line splitter to a phone cord that plugs into the phone.

And if you got glassy-eyed from reading that, so did I. LOL

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

I think an alternative to Luke's solution would be to use cheap phone cords, with just two pins and two wires in them rather than 4, to connect to the V-portal. It sounds as if the FAX machine is somehow shorting line 1 to line 2 when it's hooked directly to the V-portal.

Posts: 111 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Jan 26, 2008 Posts: 111

Steve48 wrote:

I think an alternative to Luke's solution would be to use cheap phone cords, with just two pins and two wires in them rather than 4, to connect to the V-portal. It sounds as if the FAX machine is somehow shorting line 1 to line 2 when it's hooked directly to the V-portal.

Yeah I'm curious too. Maybe he plugged the phone into the back of the fax output (to phone) or something. Still looking for news here. Eek

Trouble is I never had to nurse any of my connections by using one-pair leads. If I had you would have heard me screaming bloody MURDER! (And that was before I ever enrolled here. LOL)

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

It's a problem that seems to come up from time to time. The D-link VTA has created some problems requiring a single pair cord.

Posts: 111 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Jan 26, 2008 Posts: 111

Steve48 wrote:

It's a problem that seems to come up from time to time. The D-link VTA has created some problems requiring a single pair cord.

Senior moment here again. Sad

I ran across this forum or something where they explained that some European phones (?) or was it an intercom feature (?) caused a malfunction. Don't remember if I posted it or just bookmarked it. (bourbon talking here) But one needed to chop off the outside leads to cripple the setup into operation.

But for now, perhaps we can assume it isn't the D-Link that's been shot with a dart out of the gate?

I mean we are talking global here. I found that out all of a sudden. Razz

Perhaps we should ask if the device in question has a crank. <slaps self on face as well as wrist>