Residential phone solutions and applications

[bwyatt]

I've got a number of questions as I embark upon the Voipo solution to my needs.

Today we have a new working Voipo residential account with the following setup:

* Cable comes into the house at point A.

* Voipo device is plugged into the router at point B.

* Cordless phone is plugged into the Voipo device and working properly.

My first question is this:

We had two phones downstairs; one in the den and one in the kitchen and three phones upstairs; one in a bedroom, one in another bedroom, and one in an upstairs office.

The cordless phone begins to break up in the kitchen and doesn't reach upstairs at all.

Wife doesn't like the idea of not being able to use the kitchen phone, and she doesn't like not having a phone in the bedroom.

I have simul-ring going to the cell and that's working ok, but what solutions does anyone recommend for making our VOIPO account work more like what we had? Wife is not technical at all... she just wants to be able to talk on the phone in the kitchen and the bedroom.

All suggestions are encouraged.

Thanks!

[usa2k]

I use 5.8Ghz Uniden, and it works in my 1 floor - plus basement home.
Some of the reasons for bad wireless reception are the phone frequency,
and the house construction.

The phone can be away from the router with a long enough phone cable.
Is the wireless phone fairly central? That may help.

Or if the router is better placed ...
Much of my computers are wirelessly connected.
My Adapter is upstairs near my wireless base.

[Russell]

I've got a number of questions as I embark upon the Voipo solution to my needs.

Today we have a new working Voipo residential account with the following setup:

* Cable comes into the house at point A.

* Voipo device is plugged into the router at point B.

* Cordless phone is plugged into the Voipo device and working properly.

My first question is this:

We had two phones downstairs; one in the den and one in the kitchen and three phones upstairs; one in a bedroom, one in another bedroom, and one in an upstairs office.

The cordless phone begins to break up in the kitchen and doesn't reach upstairs at all.

Wife doesn't like the idea of not being able to use the kitchen phone, and she doesn't like having a phone in the bedroom.

I have simul-ring going to the cell and that's working ok, but what solutions does anyone recommend for making our VOIPO account work more like what we had? Wife is not technical at all... she just wants to be able to talk on the phone in the kitchen and the bedroom.

All suggestions are encouraged.

Thanks!

Why not feed the output of the ATA into your home wiring? See my post #5 in http://forums.voipo.com/showthread.php?t=1559&highlight=wiring. Essentially, you disconnect any external input to your house (phone company cable at the network interface outside your house) and then feed the ATA into any phone jack. All the phones in your house should work as before. Wife happy.

[caseydoug]

I assume you are comparing your situation now to a PSTN system where all the phones were wired? Because there is no reason a cordless system would work any differently on VoIP or PSTN. I agree with Russell's suggestion. I have VOIPo feeding into home wiring with two-line jacks throughout the house. I also have a two-line cordless system with six handsets. Even though my ATA is in the basement, the base station for my cordless system is on the second floor where the coverage is better, plugged into a wired jack there. This way, I get cordless reception throughout the house (three storeys plus the basement), and can plug in a corded phone anywhere.

[bwyatt]

I assume you are comparing your situation now to a PSTN system where all the phones were wired?

Yes.


Essentially, you disconnect any external input to your house (phone company cable at the network interface outside your house) and then feed the ATA into any phone jack. All the phones in your house should work as before.

That's the perfect solution. You are saying it's not necessary to feed the output of the ATA at the external input to the house? If I'm understanding correctly, plugging the output of the ATA to any phone jack on the same pair will work as long as the external input is disconnected - right?

[Russell]

That's the perfect solution. You are saying it's not necessary to feed the output of the ATA at the external input to the house? If I'm understanding correctly, plugging the output of the ATA to any phone jack on the same pair will work as long as the external input is disconnected - right?

Exactly right!

[usa2k]

Makes sure the outside stays disconnected.
The could be a voltage potential from the traditional phone company.

[caseydoug]

That will work, but if your house is old like mine, you might find your internal wiring is a bit of a mess, with odd lines coming in to the house at various points, jacks being daisy chained together, some jacks carrying one pair while other jacks carry two, wires reversed, etc. Connecting to any old jack in the house can yield unpredictable results. If you have problems, consider finding where the main two-pair cable comes into the house, disconnecting it from the NID, and connecting your adapter there. Ideally, you would want a star topology with "home runs" running from all jacks to that point, but of course your internal wiring is what it is . . .

[bwyatt]

if your house is old like mine, you might find your internal wiring is a bit of a mess

lol, these forums are great.

When I checked the box outside there were 5 lines coming out of it and going into the house at different points. (Our house was built in the 1940's).

After a little more investigating, I determined 3 of the lines were dead and no longer connected to anything in the house. One line fed all the phones in the house except two. The other line fed the other two. I had forgotten, but 11 years ago we had two phone lines in the house... one for the phone, and the other for our "dedicated dial up" internet line. (Remember the days when you couldn't talk on the phone and be on the internet at the same time?)

From the box outside I disabled the two lines going into the house from the phone company line coming to the box. This was easily done by simply unplugging the lines from the jacks inside the box.

Using a coupler I joined the two lines at the box, plugged my voipo device into the nearest phone jack, and all of our phones in the house are working perfectly on our new VOIPO line.

Thanks for the suggestion Russell!

[caseydoug]

Glad you got it working. Remember that home wiring often consists of an inside pair and an outside pair, capable of supporting two lines. If yours has that, you can get some adapters and use your existing jacks in connection with both ports on your voipo device. You can get a virtual number and have it ring line2, or convert that virtual number into a fully independent line, and thus have a second phone line throughout your house. You might need adapters for jacks using the outside pair, but those are very cheap at e.g. Radio Shack. It all depends on whether the jacks in your house are wired for two pair.

[bwyatt]

It all depends on whether the jacks in your house are wired for two pair.


Good suggestion. I'm going to guess... some are and some aren't.

I'm porting my phone number and have a temporary number now. I suppose it would be best to wait until the dust settles and the number is moved before I try it?

[tritch]

Just a point to remember for others reading this thread and thinking about using their house wiring. This works fine and dandy for those who have cable service for their ISP, but for those who use DSL it's another story. You will have to ensure that a dedicated wire pair from the NID is used exclusively to the DSL modem. Hopefully, there will be at least 2 other unused wire pairs that can be isolated at the NID so that they can be used at the wall jacks in the house for ATA line 1 and line 2 ports.

If you connect the DSL wire pair to one of the ATA's port by accident, it will likely damage the phone port on the ATA.

[bwyatt]

Good point. Had that very discussion with a friend earlier today.

[caseydoug]

For years I had DSL, with one PSTN line and one VoIP line, all distributed through house wiring. The trick was to put a filter on the incoming phone line at the NID, then split it, with one pair going to the PSTN half of the jacks (inside pair), and the other pair going to the VoIP adapter, and from the VoIP adapter to the outside pair of the jacks. It worked fine, but the inside wiring needs to be pretty clean. Mine runs in a star pattern out from the phone closet.