Making the switch - How complicated is it?

[finestsounds]

I have four (3 cordless, 1 wired) phones on my existing Verizon old school land line. I pay about 30 bucks a month for bare bones service, calls are crisp even though Verizon keep bugging me to swith to fiber optic. There is a Verizon box on the back of my house that I can get into. I'm thinking of switching to VOIPo if I can do it seemlessy and painlessly. I want to keep my same number. I have high speed internet, (Comcast). What will I need to do to keep using all of my phones with VOIPo?

[redoneusa]

Personally I would go all cordless and plug the main base station directly into your VoiPo adapter. Of course you could mess with the Verizon box outside but why waste the time?

Cordless to your ATA, simple and works everytime!

[MarkTomlinson]

Personally I would go all cordless and plug the main base station directly into your VoiPo adapter. Of course you could mess with the Verizon box outside but why waste the time?

Cordless to your ATA, simple and works everytime!That's what I did. I ended up with a Panasonic unit with additional handsets, which can be found practically anywhere quiet reasonably priced. I plugged the base unit into the ATA (VOIPo phone adapter that plugs into your Internet connection) and scattered the additional units around the house. And that's all there is to it.

[finestsounds]

Well one of the phone jacks are hanging high on the wall in the kitchen for one of those old-school phones, was trying to keep that one usable. So what's this I hear that you have to unhook something at the Verizon box as to not fry the Voip converter box? Something to do with the amount of voltage that it takes to make the phones ring?

[usa2k]

Rushing off to work ... try searching on Google: voip nid demarc

[christcorp]

All cordless is fine; assuming you have enough UPS systems in your house. Most people have an UPS for the PC and gear, but what good are those phones if you have a power outage?

As USA2K mentioned, do a search on disconnecting Ma' Bell's main incoming line from your phone jacks. It's a very simple process. "Assuming you aren't using DSL, which requires keeping the jack that the DSL modem plugs into, connected to the internet provider". For the person who only used Ma'Bell for phone service, it takes about 3 minutes to disconnect Ma'Bell. If you have a newer Ma'Bell NI (Network Interface), then you simply need to just unplug a phone cord in the box and leave all the wiring alone. That takes about 8 seconds. Once you do this, you simply plug the voip adapter into one of your phone jacks, and ALL of your phone jacks work just like a normal phone system.

But do some searching for something with pictures or Youtube video so you know exactly what you're doing. If you don't do it correctly, then the Ma'Bell line will have voltage on it; plus your voip adapter will be putting out voltage. Not good for the adapter. And even if the Ma'Bell didn't have voltage on it, if it was still connected to your house wiring, there would probably be a few MILES of wire connected and that wouldn't allow your phones to ring most likely.

Here's a couple of links. Caution: If you don't feel comfortable reading this material, then you really have no business playing with it. It's not complicated, but there's a reason some of us get paid a lot of money. If you feel comfortable reading this, it's easy. If you don't feel comfortable, buy one of the cordless units with 4+ cordless handset.

http://www.voipmyhouse.com/
http://www.ehow.com/how_5997259_add-voip-phone-line.html
http://www.ehow.com/how_5701936_wire-whole-house-voip.html
http://www.engadget.com/2006/06/20/how-to-wiring-voip-to-your-phone-jacks/

[finestsounds]

Really didn't find anything that makes sense to me. Had no idea that switch from lan line to VOIP would be so complicated, wow.

[finestsounds]

OH wait, I was replying to usa2k, then I scrolled down to see christcorp's response, thank you. I will look into it.

[finestsounds]

OK, so the second link tells me to just disconnect everything from the NIU, and the third link tells me I have to rewire everything in there to my Voip adapter and broadband modem. So which is it?

[usa2k]

You said you have high speed cable, so an external connection to phone service needs to be disconnected and maybe tagged to say leave unconnected.
Sometimes a discontinued phone may have emergency services left, or is not disconnected when you get your new service, so it is still active.

I always called to cancel the old service when my number was ported, and working fine.
I prefer to leave the wired bell technology to history and stick with a wireless base phone off the ATA (Analog Telephone Adapter.)


Two devices should work fine. If you had a bunch of wired phones that exceeded the REN (Ring equiviliency number) then some may not ring properly.
Five old school phones is usually supported.

[christcorp]

If your phone box looks similar to what's in the first link; and you have a bunch of thin red/green or blue/white type wire in there (One pair probably to each jack, or you only have one or two pairs and they are daisy chained in the house), and MOST IMPORTANTLY, you have a small phone cord in that box,,,,, then JUST UNPLUG THE PHONE CORD IN THE BOX. Then, you're done. That is specifically designed, to disconnect YOUR JACKS from the phone company's line, so if your phone system didn't work, you could unplug that jack, which disconnects from all your house jacks, and plug a phone into it.

So, if you unplug that jack and LEAVE IT UNPLUGGED, then all your jacks are disconnected from Ma'Bell. Simply take the phone jack on the voip adapter and plug it into a phone jack in your house. Now, ALL your jacks will work.

If your phone box doesn't sort of look like that, and there's no jack cord in it to UNPLUG, then take a pickture of it and post it. Then we can tell you. Best of luck. Mike....