Do I have to hookup the base phone to Vonage device?

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: Nov 25, 2008 Posts: 3

I just got my Vonage recently and everything is working fine so far (except that gotcha with caller id). One annoying thing (for me at least) is that I have to have my base phone hooked to the Vonage device. My question is, do we have any other option something like a telephone cable from device to the wall (internal wiring) and base phone hooked to the wall telephone jack in some other room!!?? I tried this but did not work for me. Not sure its not supposed to work that way or it’s allowed but doesn’t work in this specific house because of the way the internal wiring laid out.

Any comments would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

Posts: 1327 · Vonage Forum **MVM** Joined: Nov 08, 2006 Posts: 1327

Look for the subject about house wiring here on the site. If you have your own home you can disconnect the home wire from outside box and then run phone cord from jack to Vonage box and then then use any jack in the house for your phone.

Posts: 831 · Vonage Forum Evangelist Joined: Jun 08, 2007 Posts: 831

roscopco wrote:

you can disconnect the home wire from outside box and then run phone cord from jack to Vonage box and then then use any jack in the house for your phone.

Pay careful attention to the advice "disconnect the home wire from outside box", as voltage that still may be present on the Ma Bell line can fry your Vonage device.

BTW, my home wiring works great!

Posts: 1327 · Vonage Forum **MVM** Joined: Nov 08, 2006 Posts: 1327

I never had an issue, I disconnected to wires, plus a plug and that was 2 years ago.

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: Nov 25, 2008 Posts: 3

Thanks guys. I will try that tonight.

Posts: 227 · Posted: Tue Nov 25, 2008 11:27 pm Post subject:

But be careful if you're using DSL to connect with the Internet. Those outside wires are delivering DSL. The usual practice, in this case, is to move the DSL connection to the second pair of wires in your house wiring: the orange/white pair in newer wiring, and the black/yellow pair on older wiring. Leave the first pair (blue/white in newer cables, red/green in older ones) disconnected. Plug your DSL modem into the second pair, either by rewiring its wall-jack, or using a triplex adapter. Then you can use the first pair to distribute Vonage voice service throughout your house.

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: Nov 25, 2008 Posts: 3

Well, I disconnected all the wires (there were two lines coming into the basement and one line each to rest of the 2 levels) and taped each bunch together at the end points so that it would be easy to connect them back tomorrow. Then I connected my base phone to one of the wall jacks that I always use. I got the dial tone first and then busy signal. Once I get busy sound it doesn’t go away even I turn the phone off and on. It goes away only when I re-connect base phone back to Vonage device. Did anyone experience this problem? Thanks.

Posts: 355 · Posted: Wed Nov 26, 2008 6:51 pm Post subject:

Did you tape the bare wire ends together? If you did you are creating a short that will not allow the device to work.

Posts: 16 · Posted: Sat Nov 29, 2008 7:28 pm Post subject: do this

Find a comcast, cox, att, verizon (depends on where you live) PHONE installer who is not busy as hell doing installations. Offer him 50 dollars (hell he might take 25) to spend one hour at your house fixing your phone lines--NOT RUNNING NEW ONES, JUST FIXING EXISTING ONES. Tell him you want him to go to every phone jack and check/fix the wiring so it is correct. He will also need to go to the NID and into your basement where all your home run phone wires come together (could be a punch-down, or the old-school block with bolt/nut). This would be a much easier solution rather than explaining how to go about fixing your own wiring. Thats what I would do if I were you.