Home phone wiring problem -- can't distribute service

Posts: 4

I just signed up with Vonage and have tried to follow their instructions for "re-wiring" my house for Vonage service. I disconnected my home phone wiring from the phone company at the NIU, verified that all the phones inside were now dead, and then connected the Vonage router to one of my phone jacks. But all the other phones remained dead -- no dial tone, no power, no nothing. I have a large house, but only two phones plugged in.

Any reason why it might not work? Here's a picture of where all the phone wiring meets inside my home, in case it matters:

Posts: 218 · Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2005 10:18 am Post subject:

Have you tried to plug the Vonage line into another phone jack to be sure your phones aren't on two different circuits?

Robert

Posts: 4 · Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2005 12:35 pm Post subject:

Haven't tried that. The phone jack it's plugged into works fine with a normal phone, so I figured it'd work with the Vonage router. Is that not the case?

Posts: 218 · Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2005 2:13 pm Post subject:

sorry, I can't tell very much from the picture, but I would just try to plug it into another jack and see if this will light up other phones in the house. Can't hurt to try it out!

Posts: 492 · Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2005 2:37 pm Post subject:

Perhaps this suggestion is a little crude. Get out your wire cutters and go to work. Separate all wire pairs. Connect like colors to like colors. If that seems to drastic, you could hire an electrician to sort out that rats nest of wires.

Posts: 5 · New Forum Member Joined: Jun 15, 2006 Posts: 5

Did you say you have two phone jacks?

ifthat'st the case what you need is DSL filter .

Connect the DSL filter directly to your Vonage Adapter.

Connect one end of your phone line to one of the ports of
your DSL Filte and the other to your phone.

For your other phone you will need another seperate phone line
cord. Connect one end to the 2nd. port of your filter and the other to your phone and presto! you know have two live phone!

You can also have the two phone line cords connected directly to
your jacks mounted on the wall.

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

Khedden, is everything working all right when you plug a phone directly into the Vonage adapter? Have you checked the phone that you're using to test the house wiring and all of the phone cords that you're using?

Is your adapter acting normally when it's plugged into the house wiring? For example, does the phone light stay lit and not go out or flash? If you have a splitter, can you use it to plug the adapter into a wall jack and also connect directly to a test phone? If you do that, does the test phone work?

For test purposes, unplug that second phone from the wall.

Posts: 293 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Jan 22, 2006 Posts: 293

sacse2005 wrote:

Did you say you have two phone jacks?

ifthat'st the case what you need is DSL filter .

Connect the DSL filter directly to your Vonage Adapter.

Sorry, I don't see the connection there.

If the home wiring has been disconnected at the NIU then I do what rlstjohn suggested by just trying another jack. Wiggle things a bit, and inspect the jacks. I've seen many a crossed wire in the jacks, as well as instances where the contact wires were pushed back into the jack so far as to prevent connection.