Telephone technician woes - advice needed!

Posts: 9

Not sure what I should do here...

We just bought a house, and decided to do the Vonage/Comcast thing. Because I did not feel comfortable about disconnecting telco myself, I hired a telephone technician ($80 total charge) to come out and do it and verify there is no voltage on the wiring inside the house. In addition to unplugging the RJ11-looking plugs inside the NIU, he took all the wiring off the screw terminals and clipped off the copper ends. I asked him if all he had to do is unplug the RJ11's and he said yes, which made me wonder why he took all the wiring off in the first place. Then I said if the Vonage thing does not work out, I'd like to hook up telco myself and asked what I should do. He then took 2 wires (blue with white stripe, and white with blue stripe--I'm guessing these are from the wiring inside the house) and hooked those back up on the screw terminals.

Here's the kicker... After he left, he called me at work and said that he was thinking about my situation a bit more (obviously he has no experience with this or VoIP) and he thought that the 2 wires that he hooked back up should be spliced together, to "complete the loop". I told him to go and make the change, but overnight I talked to several of my coworkers and they said that this is not the right thing to do. I tried to call him the next morning, but he had already went to my house and spliced them together.

My question is: Does this telephone tecnician know what he is doing? Is splicing these 2 wires together the right thing to do, and will it damage my router and phone equipment? Do you think I should call the owner and complain? If I complain, they'll ask me what they can do to remedy the situation, and I'm not sure if I want this guy coming out yet another time...who knows what he'll do.

I don't even feel comfortable hooking anything into my RJ11 jacks inside the house now, so I think we're going to go with the VTech 5.8MHz wireless phone station.

Luckily, before he came out, I took several high-quality digital pictures of the wiring inside the NIU, so I think I could probably (with the help of some coworkers) put the wiring back the way it was, but leave the RJ11's unplugged.

Any words of wisdom would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

Posts: 112 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Jan 17, 2005 Posts: 112

I would personally, put things together again. (disconnect any VoIP hardware) and you most likley still have your POTS line..if so, verify you have dial tone checking each phone jack..maybe take a hard wire phone around with you and test. Once you have verified you have a dial tone...disconnect the wires..test each phone jack again...if you have no dial tone, hook up your VoIP hardware...check for dial tone....if you have one, then your all set...if not, twist the color coded wires together...red to red, green to green....check for dial tone. Just dont connect them to the box where you disconnected them. I have the same rj45 plugs and I disconnected them, but found out I didnt need to. After a while, my internal lines failed...I have an old house, so I bought a 4 pack of Uniden 2.4ghz from Costco for 99.00. Connected the main station to the VoIP AT...I have a PAP2, then I put the other 3 phones throughout the house....If this is an ideal solution for you...hook up your POTS lines..make sure they work, and do the wireless phone solution....I would definatley complain to the company..if they ask what they can do for you, tell them to refund your money.