Hard wiring home with 2 phone lines

Posts: 2 · New Forum Member Joined: Jun 14, 2008 Posts: 2

Hello,

First off, I just wanted to say thank you. I followed the instructions for installing the V-Portal and noticed my cable internet speed had slowed down considerably. Some people on here recommended connecting the V-Portal to a port on the back of the router instead of having the V-Portal before the router. I just got finished doing that and now my internet speed is blazing again. Wheew!

I am wanting to do the hard-wiring now so that I can use Vonage with all my phones. I have two phone numbers in my home. I am using Vonage to replace my main telephone line but I would like to keep my other telephone line alive.

Will I be able to disconnect the main line in the box outside while keeping the second line alive and still be able to hard wire the house to use Vonage for my main line? Or does the entire box outside need to be dead?

Posts: 323 · Vonage Forum Evangelist Joined: Jan 29, 2006 Posts: 323

First you should probably post this in the hard wiring forum as they know more about this.

Second, you have to disconnect everything from the outside, so if you have 1 line Vonage and 1 line from the good old phone company, I don't think you can hard wire Vonage.

The issue is the power that comes across the line from the phone company's connection.

I'm not an expert in this, but I'm fairly sure I have it right here.

One alternative is to use an expandable cordless phone system with multiple handsets. This is what we have in the house and now we have Vonage everywhere.

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

The hard wiring forum does have a sticky message describing how wiring is done. It's a good read.

Things are not quite as bad as you fear. Only the inactive line needs to be disconnected from the outside box. The active line can stay connected, and the Vonage box connected to the inactive pair via one of the jacks in the house. Their are two major concerns: First, that inactive line absolutely must be disconnected, even if it's currently inactive. Second, you must be sure that the Vonage service ends up connected to the inactive line, and not connected to the line that's still active. Mess up on that one and the Vonage box can end up dead.

One way to accomplish item 2 is to get an L1/L2 type splitter. This is not the same as a simple Y-splitter. It separates the 2 pairs in a standard jack into separate jacks. Plug this into the wall and plug a telephone first into L1 and then into L2. One of these should be active with the remaining land line. The other should be dead. Plug the Vonage box into the dead one.

Keep in mind that standard telephones normally only access L1. You'll need a two line phone or some more L1/L2 splitters to access both lines.

Posts: 2 · New Forum Member Joined: Jun 14, 2008 Posts: 2

Thank you very much! I apologize I posted in the wrong area. I noticed the Hard Wiring section after I made the post.

Ohh that is definitely good news. I use the other telco line for my home based business and do not want to get rid of it just yet.

Thanks again!

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

Good luck. Just be careful and it should work great.