House wiring question

Posts: 10 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jan 29, 2005 Posts: 10

I apparently picked a really bad day to connect the router. Wrestled with is all day and it looks like it was an issue with Vonage! Mad

Anyway. Here's my problem. The router now appears to work fine. Internet is working again, I can plug a phone into the router and make and receive calls. I want to plug the router into a phone jack and be connected everywhere in the house. The only phone jack by my computer is a line that was formerly used for a dial-up modem. It was specifically installed for it, and has been dead since I went to cable broadband. I opened up the phone box on the side of the house. There are four outlets (jacks) with short phone cords plugged into each. Only the top two are wired. The first one is for all the lines in the house, the second one for the dead dial-up line.

I got a short 1 foot long phone line with a plug at each end (like for connecting an answering machine or caller id), and plugged each end into the top to jacks. So the top two are no longer connected to the outside line from the phone company, and are connected to each other with this jumper.

If you're still reading, this doesn't work. I don't get a dial tone. Does using the short jumper not give me the result I'm expecting? Or is it more likely the internal wiring? The house was built in 1978, if that matters.

Posts: 1 · New Forum Member Joined: Jan 29, 2005 Posts: 1

first thing is to take the connect from the telco, completely out of the picture
depending on what type of D-Mark ( the box on the side of the house ) you have you can take a socket wrench and open the telco part of the box
there is two leads screw into that part, disconnect them , then check to maybe sure you do not have any dialtone.

then connect a small jumper to the (top) red and green to the bottom reg & green
plug the router up inside your house to the jack in the house
then go to another place you have the (top) jack connected to and see if you have dial tone
Hope this helps of course I am not a good teacher I can do faster than tell:>

Posts: 10 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jan 29, 2005 Posts: 10

So running a telephone line from one jack to the second wouldn't work? I want to do the simplest path. My fear is that it is the wiring within the house and that it won't matter what I do at the phone box outside.

Posts: 222 · Posted: Sun Jan 30, 2005 10:04 am Post subject:

WaylandDad wrote:

So running a telephone line from one jack to the second wouldn't work? I want to do the simplest path. My fear is that it is the wiring within the house and that it won't matter what I do at the phone box outside.

Well if you really meant you are interested in the "simplest path," the solution is to buy a wireless/cordless phoneset with multiple extensions (preferably a 5.8 ghz system to avoid interference with/from other wireless devices). You can get them with several additional handsets. Then all you have to do is plug the base station into phone port #1 on your phone adapter and you don't have to worry about the quality or setup of your home wiring.

I think that is the "simplest path" but it is not the cheapest path. If you want both the simplest and cheapest, then using your existing wiring may be your best alternative. There is, of course, a physical limit on the number of handsets that your Vonage adapter can support based on the characteristics of the handsets themselves. If you're interested in that, do a search here on REN and you'll find info on that.

Good luck.

- Fletcher

Posts: 10 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jan 29, 2005 Posts: 10

I traced the phone line back from the outlet. The line doesn't even go back to the NIU. I'm going to have to splice into a good line. They appear to be right next to each other in the basement. Time to do some research.

Posts: 10 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jan 29, 2005 Posts: 10

Traced the line back to a junction box. It had orange-orange stripe hooked up to black-yellow. Rewired it to have blue/orange connected to red and blue stripe/orange stripe hooked up to green. Got a dial tone! Unhooked the connections at the NIU, plugged the router into the jack, and I'm in business.

Thanks for the help!

Posts: 220 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Aug 19, 2003 Posts: 220

Remember when you take over the wiring, at least it used to be the maximum number of independent handsets plugged into the wiring was five. Not being somebody who understands the load and drain and all that, I assume it has the same effect as having too many TVs plugged into the cable. Smile

Anyway, we have a 3-phone wireless system and then a couple other regular phones plugged in at strategic places for when nobody can find a handset. I've not ever tried to plug in more than five. It may still work if your up/down is really strong and your cable demands aren't over the top, but I'm not sure we have six phones left around here to try it out.

laureltn