I want to wire my house so I can use all phone ports

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

NoVa1:

This intrigues me. I have one jack in my home office that has a second line configuration. It was for my fax machine and of course we killed that when we decided to sign up for Vonage. My transfer isn't complete yet, but I'm thinking that if there's a way to run a POTS line into that one jack and let the rest of the house have Vonage, I could get a bare-bones line from Bell -- not my real number since it's being transferred -- and have that for backup in the event the system goes down.

Would that work with the 66 block? Where you do get one? We've got a good friend who retired from GTE after about 20 years and I'm thinking he could probably walk us through it. Sounds like a great way to go.

Laurel tn

Guest

I've connected my ATA to a DLink wireless bridge (DLW-810+) which flows into the wireless router. I did that because there was no either net port where I wanted the phone base station. After using it since August I'd have to say it works pretty well. Some artifacts sneak in, expecially if you are downloading files but on the whole it is a good, stable solution.

Guest

oropesav wrote:

Has anyone used the Cisco ATA 186 to wire their house and use all phone jacks like with a pots line? If anyone has and can share the "deets" it would be greatly appreciated.

I did it by following the step-by-step instuctions here:

http://www.voxilla.com/Article12.phtml

Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2003 2:37 pm Post subject: 2 lines

If I follow the instructions above, and I have 2 LINES, do I just make sure and plug in the ATA to the line jack for the number I want to replace? Any chance of crossover doing this?

I eventually plan to have both lines on Vonage, but need to get the first up first.

Posts: 36 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Aug 15, 2003 Posts: 36

Anonymous wrote:

If I follow the instructions above, and I have 2 LINES, do I just make sure and plug in the ATA to the line jack for the number I want to replace? Any chance of crossover doing this?

I eventually plan to have both lines on Vonage, but need to get the first up first.

Why don't you pick up one of the Radio Shack phone line testers (about $3-$4) and test with only the ATA connected and test again with only the outside phone jack connected. This would show you if you have any wiring crossover.

Guest

if you want to run 2 vonage lines and have them recognized by two line phones through household wiring, you should (in theory) be able to get a radio shack line 1 and line 2 splitter, run a cable from the L1 port of the ata to line 1, l2 to line 2....then you should beable to use one (4 wire) phone cable plugged into a 2 line phone and access both lines.

Posts: 36 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Aug 15, 2003 Posts: 36

mdoggg wrote:

if you want to run 2 vonage lines and have them recognized by two line phones through household wiring, you should (in theory) be able to get a radio shack line 1 and line 2 splitter, run a cable from the L1 port of the ata to line 1, l2 to line 2....then you should beable to use one (4 wire) phone cable plugged into a 2 line phone and access both lines.

I am not sure that I understand what you mean by the radio shack splitter. If you are referring to those beige jacks that plug into the wall which have 2 jacks to plug into, those won't work. Here's how I did it:

In one room, I have two computers with modems, a phone, and the CISCO ATA which is setup for two phone lines and I wanted to connect the ATA so that it work with phones in other rooms over existing wiring. I bought a wall plate at Lowe's hardware that has 6 square holes and I bought 6 phone jacks for the holes. I labeled 4 of the phone ports with "LN 1-2" and the remaining 2 phone ports with "LN 2". On the ports labeled "LN 2", I connected the black and yellow phone wires to pins 2 and 3 of the jack . I connected one of those phone jacks to line 2 of the CISCO ATA and the other jack is available if I wish to hook up a fax machine to my fax line. For the other 4 jacks, I connected the green and yellow wires to pins 2 and 3 of the jack and the black and yellow wires to pins 1 and 4. I plugged Line 1 of the CISCO ATA to one of those jacks. The remaining 3 jacks can now be used with a 2-line phone or a single line phone on line 1. Works great. I verified the correct polarity on all of my connections although, as discussed above, it doesn't seem to matter that much any more.