Next great adventure - hooking up VOIP for the house

[FlintstoneGummy]

First off, thank you thank you and thank you to this incredible forum for holding my hand through these last few weeks of adventure, especially to drgeoff who helped me "cross-connect" a POTS line to a series of Obi devices here, and gave me some good pointers on an alternative to highway robbery Verizon here.

Now I am attempting something truly crazy, and think of it as a "feasibility test" right now. In brief: I am wondering if it possible to wire an Obi200 directly into the landline system of my in-laws' house, and use Internet + Obi200 to "feed" the landline system such that it would be indistinguishable from continuing to pay reasonable monthly fees ransom to Verizon.

I've read this page in detail (including the parts I didn't understand). As I understood, there are two potential approaches to tackling this experiment.

Approach 1: Hook in the Obi200 into the telephone module in the basement, wherein it would get distributed throughout the house.

In the basement of the house, there are 2 lines coming in. One is hooked up to a DSL filter, and after the DSL filter gets the split out into a phone module.

I know this line is what is feeding the landline, because when I disconnect the RJ11 jack, there are no longer landline tones.




However, what I can't figure out is that when I connect a regular landline phone to this DSL filter (or even directly), I don't hear a dial tone. I imagine I would connect an Obi200 to this to "substitute" for what's coming from the outside.

Would this experiment work, or would it fry my equipment, or am I barking up the wrong tree?

Approach 2: Disconnect the lines coming into the house in the basement, then just plug Obi200 into any jack in the house.

The aforementioned article suggests that if I were to simply disconnect all the incoming wires (from Verizon, etc.) and plug my Obi200 into any jack in the house, it would pick up and be distributed throughout. Is this true?

Finally, should mention the house has an alarm system. I really cant make heads or tails of that explanation in the article, but is it severe enough for me to consider calling off this idea?

Thanks a million!

[drgeoff]

Yes an OBi is able to feed multiple POTS type phones over house phone wiring. But it is essential that such wiring is disconnected from the external telco line.  Not just a matter of things not working.  There is a high probability of irretrievably damaging the OBi.  Also the POTS provider will be displeased to say the least.

So how do you get the incoming xDSL on the POTS line to the modem and disconnect the POTS line from the house wiring?

I'm not au fait with the common wiring practices, demarcation points, junction boxes etc in the US so won't attempt to offer specific advice.

[FlintstoneGummy]

They don't get xDSL service anymore. I think that line filter was leftover from when we had DSL "service" (advertised: "up to" 7 mbps; reality: 250 kbps on a good day). They now have rural WiMax or something like that.

So question: upon disconnection, do I hook the Obi200 into the junction box (approach 1), or do I hook it into an RJ11 port around the house (approach 2)?

[drgeoff]

The two should be exactly the same provided you are correctly picking up the wires in approach 1.

[FlintstoneGummy]

The two should be exactly the same provided you are correctly picking up the wires in approach 1.

Understood. I shall experiment later this week and report back..

QQ: any guesses as to why if I hook a traditional landline phone into the Verizon line in (before it entered the junction box and get distributed throughout the house), I didn't hear a dial tone?

[drgeoff]

QQ: any guesses as to why if I hook a traditional landline phone into the Verizon line in (before it entered the junction box and get distributed throughout the house), I didn't hear a dial tone?

There is no mysterious reason.  Only 3 possibilities:

1.  You were not connecting to the phone pair.  Wrong cable or not the correct two wires in a cable with more than 2 wires.

2.  Faulty phone or cord.

3.  Poor connection.  The telco does not put dial tone on the line until it the phone has been taken off-hook and completes a loop through the phone circuitry.  That is done by sensing the current that flows when the hook switch operates.  Anything that causes that current to be zero or too low means no dial tone.

[FlintstoneGummy]

Update: after reading even more and getting progressively more terrified at the idea of destroying equipment, electrocuting myself, or burning down my in-law's home, I have chickened out.

Since I am just solving for 2 old landline phones, I decided to buy a bunch of "wireless phone jacks" off eBay and work with those.

[drgeoff]

Update: after reading even more and getting progressively more terrified at the idea of destroying equipment, electrocuting myself, or burning down my in-law's home, I have chickened out.

Since I am just solving for 2 old landline phones, I decided to buy a bunch of "wireless phone jacks" off eBay and work with those.

I would suggest a set of DECT base station and two handsets.  Panasonic models have a good reputation.

[FlintstoneGummy]

I would suggest a set of DECT base station and two handsets.  Panasonic models have a good reputation.

That was my initial thought but my in-laws are 1) stubborn, 2) Paleolithic, and 3) set in their ways. They are actually crazily attached to their ancient landline phones and are frightened of new technology.

[Smee]

I've done this for my house and my parents. The only trick here is that you disconnect your Telco's line from the NID and make sure you connect the Obi in a way that it delivers the right polarity to your phones in the house. Keep in mind that the Obi will probably only be able to drive 5 phones in the house before you have other issues. To drive more phones, you may need another device to help with that.

Smee

[drgeoff]

I've done this for my house and my parents. The only trick here is that you disconnect your Telco's line from the NID and make sure you connect the Obi in a way that it delivers the right polarity to your phones in the house. Keep in mind that the Obi will probably only be able to drive 5 phones in the house before you have other issues. To drive more phones, you may need another device to help with that.

Smee

The polarity does not matter.

If the phones are so old that they only have pulse dialling, they won't make outbound calls.  OBis support tone dialling (Touch-Tone, DTMF) only.