Connecting Vonage to exisitng phone jacks

Posts: 1 · New Forum Member Joined: Jan 26, 2005 Posts: 1

I am hoping someone can help me with regard to connecting the Linksys unit direct to my existing phone jacks.

I bought a line tester from Radioshack and there was no signal at all - does this mean there is no voltage and it is safe to connect Vonage direct into the jacks and hence get multiple sockets throughout the house ? (I know they advise against it but others seem to do it OK)

What is the risk of doing this - is it just burning out the Linksys unit ? Is it to do with voltage spikes burning out equipment ?

Would a phone voltage spike protector mitigate the risk of damage ?

I tested it and it all seemed to work fine - does this mean it is safe to proceed or is there still a risk ?

Thanks

Andy

Posts: 3198 · Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2005 11:56 am Post subject:

http://michigantelephone.mi.org/distribute.html

Posts: 244 · Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2005 7:16 pm Post subject:

disconnect the lines at your NIU, close and label it and then run a standard phone cable from port 1 on your router in to one of your existing phone jacks.

You're done

Posts: 492

You can do it, however, you will have to take into account the Ringer Equivalence Number (REN) of the Router output and the sum of the telephones that you intend to hook up. For instance, the Linksys RT31P2 has a REN of 5. The REN of my telephone is .48, which means I can put 10 telephones of that type on the line.

Consider the router as a current source. Every telephone has a drain on the line. Calculate the REN's of the phones, caller ID boxes, answering machines and keep it below the REN of the router and you will be OK. The worse that could happen is telephones not ringing, poor sound, etc. if you exceed the REN.

Posts: 16 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: May 20, 2005 Posts: 16

What is in the house you have ethernet to the NIU but your only using the 2 wires out of the ethernet cable. That require you to cut cable rather then unplug them.

Posts: 7 · New Forum Member Joined: May 27, 2005 Posts: 7

Rather than make a new post, I might as well ask my question in here.

I just bought a newly-constructed house that unfortunately has the "plugless" Network Interface Unit. I'm not particularly comfortable with splicing all the wires going into the screw terminal (there's about 5 or 6).

Seeing as how there has never been telco service at this address, can I just plug the VoIP adapter into the wall socket and be fine or should I actually go ahead and splice the wires? What are the chances that my adapter will be destroyed? Confused

Posts: 217 · Posted: Fri May 27, 2005 12:40 pm Post subject:

can you describe a little better how you phone box is laid out? I had swing connectors in my box and all I had to do was remove the swing arm and then plug any jack in the house into the PAP2 and it activacated all the jacks in the house.

Posts: 7 · New Forum Member Joined: May 27, 2005 Posts: 7

I can do a little better than that. I just ran outside again and took a picture with my cell phone.

Posts: 217 · Posted: Fri May 27, 2005 1:28 pm Post subject:

That look VERY CLOSE to the setup I had. I just removed the swing arms (what you have your finger near in one picture) and that disconnected the outside from the indside. Can you look at the swing arms and see if there are some contacts on them which would be completing the circuit? Anyway, once I removed the arms I simply ran a phone cord from one outlet in the house to my PAP2 and that activated all the phone jacks in the house.

Robert

Posts: 7 · New Forum Member Joined: May 27, 2005 Posts: 7

^^^ I posted this before I saw your last post

Okay, I just said screw it and disconnected all the wires from the two terminals. I plugged the VoIP adapter into the wall socket and went around the house testing out a phone.

I can only get a dial tone upstairs and there is a decent amount of line noise (buzzing) but nothing ridiculous. This is kinda frustrating, I wish there were more resources on how to do this besides that one paragraph on that Michigan site. Sad

*edit*
Going outside to reconnect the wires and try doing that swing arm disconnect. :crossesfingers: